Lady Muckraker

Article 12

Investigative reporter Ida Tarbell probed into the excesses of big business, but she faced her biggest challenge when she took on the Standard Oil Company and the formidable John D. Rockefeller.

by Paula A. Treckel

THE LION AND THE MOUSE made its Broadway debut on profits. Then word leaked out that the railroads had favored a Saturday, November 25, 1905. The play told the tale of "the mysterious Cleveland-based outfit called the South Improve- richest and the ablest and the hardest and the most unscrupu- ment Company by giving it rebates, in direct violation of federal lous" millionaire in America, John Burkett Ryder, and his con- law. Young Ida watched as her father and his friends crusaded frontation with Miss Shirley Rossmure, a young woman of against this menace to their hvelihood: Violence swept the oil "clear moral intensity." The story opened with Miss Ross- fields of western Pennsylvania as vigilantes destroyed the South more’s father, a judge, accused of accepting securities from Improvement Company’s ell cars and burned out the men who Ryder in exchange for making judicial decisions in the million- joined or sold out to that organization. "lt was my first experi- aire’s favor. To prove her f~her’s innocence, Miss Rossmore--- ence in revolution," Tarbell recalled. She learned "it was your the "mouse" to Ryder’s "lion"--set out to expose the million- privilege and duty to fight injgstice." aire’s criminal activities. The force behind the threatened takeover of the region’s oil Unlikely as it may appear, the plot of this Broadway melo- production was John D. Rockefeller, a man who had risen from drama was snatched from the headlines of the day. It was humble begiunlng to become one of the nation’s wealthiest and loosely based on the story of Ida M. Tarbell and her investiga- most powerfulindustrialists. Born in upstate New York in 1839, tion of millionaire John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Rockefeller was the son of con artist William Avery Rock- Company monopoly. Although it lacked the Broadway play’s efeller and his long-suffering wife; Etiza. The family,s poverty love story and happy ending, Tarbell’s investigation of how soon tauglit John the importance of saving attd investing money Rockefeller achieved domination of the oil industry had more and fired his dreams of becoming wealthy. "Some day, some- than its share of intrigue, crime, and corruption. Tarbell used time, when I am a man, I want to be worth a-hnndred-thnnsand- her sense of moral outrage, passion for justice, and historian’s dollars," he confided to a friend. "And I’m going to be, too--- eye for detail to reveal the inner workings of Rockefeller’s busi- some day." The somber boy found spiritual comfort in the Bap- ness empire to the world: Her work helped lead to the prosecu- tist church, which instilled in him the values of self-reliance and tion of Standard Oil by the United States government a~ the seff-improvemant and the belief that hard work would be re- company’s subsequent dismantling in 1911. warded both on earth and in heaven. Throughout his life John Ida Minerva Tarbell was born on November 5, 1857, in the turned to his church for practical lessons in living. frontier town of Hatch Hollow, Pennsylvania, one of the rough and rowdy oil boomtnwns of the region. Her father, Franklin When the Rockefeller family moved to Cleveland Ohio, 16- Tarbell, hoped to make his fortune in the young industry by year old John sought work to help support his family. "I did not manufacturing tanks to hold the Mack gold taken from beneath go to any small estabhshments," he recalled. "I did not guess the Pennsylvania hills. As a child, Ida saw how boom and bust what I would be, but I was after something big." During a cycles swept through the dirty, oil-slink communities that meeting with Henry B. Tuttle, partner in a produce-shipping dotted the countryside and witnessed the horrors of accidents-- firm, Rockefeller boldly stated, ’q understand bookkeeping, and fires and exploslons---that plagued the indnstry. I’d like to get wurk~" In 1872, suddenly and without warning, the region’s rail- "We’ll give you a chance," Tuttle said, and he hired the boy roads--the link necessary to bring the oil to market--doubled to handle the company’s books, thereby launching one of the their shipping rates, deeply cutting the independent producers’ most successful careers in American business.

62 Article 12. Lady Muckraker efeller or agree to control the production and price of oil, he drove them out of business. Ida Tarbell saw for herself the effect of Rockefeller’s machinations when he formed an alliance be- tween three of the most powerful railroads and a handful of oil refiners, called it the South Improvement Company, and used it as a tool to gain further dominance. Using such tactics, Standard Oil’s 409 companies gained control of 90 percent of the nation’s oil refining industry by 1881. In addition to buying refineries, Rockefeller sought control of the oil fields themselves. He built his own transportation net- work of.pipelines and tankers, and marketed his products both at home and abroad. Rockefeller’s efforts produced added ben- efits as well. He introduced cutting-edge technology and effi- ciency to the oil industry. And as the cost of processing petroleum dropped, so too did prices for fuel oil and lighting products. While John D. Rockefeller was ruthlessly cornering the nation’s oil market, Ida Tarbell was attending college in western Pennsylvania. From an early age she had planned to become an independent, professional woman. "I would never marry," she pledged. "It would interfere with my plan; it would fetter my freedom." In 1876 she enrolled as a freshman at Allegheny Col- lege in Meadville, Pennsylvania. She was the only woman in her class. Following her graduation in 1880, Tarbell taught for a year before joining the staff of the Meadville; Pennsylvania, Chautauqua Assembly Herald, a publication of the Chautauqua Assembly’s Literary and Scientific Circle. During her six years at the Chautauquan, Tarbell learned the art and craft of journalism. She started out as a researcher and eventually assumed the duties, if not the tifle, of managing editor. Nevertheless, Tarbell longed for more. In church one Sunday, a visiting minister thundered, "You’re dying of re- spectability!" at his complaisant congregation and spurred Tar- bell to action. In 1889 she decided to try supporting herself with Ida Tarbell works at home at her desk made neat for the photogra- her own pen. The young journalist left the Chautauquan and pher. She wrote hundreds of articles dealing with politics, public fig- ares, and social issues. headed for France. . Tarbell was ready for a new beginalng~ In Pads she made friendships that lasted a lifetime and reinvented herself as a his- John worked hard and invested his clerk’s salary in local torian, researching the life of French Revolutionary heroine grain and livestock businesses. By age 18 he had made enough Madame Marion Phlipon de Roland. To support herseff, Tarbell money to start his own produce business with Englishman Mau- wrote articles on French life for American news syndicates. One rice Clark. When the Civil War dramatically increased the price story, "The Paving of the Streets of Paris by Monsieur Alp- of commodities, the young Rockefeller invested his profits in a hand," piqued the interest of editor Samuel Sidney McClure, local oil refinery. Refineries bought crude oil from the oil pro- founder of McClure’s Magazine. McClure had emigrated dncers and processed it into products such as kerosene. Cleve- from Ireland in 1866, and in 1884 he had established one of the land was then the center of the refining industry because it was earliest U. S. newspaper syndicates. A dynamic, energetic close to the oil-rich fields of western Pennsylvania, and its loca- man--Rudyard Kipling described him as a "cyclone in a frock tion on Lake Erie prov~ided an easy means of shipping the valu- coat"--McClure launched his magazine in 1893 to campaign able commodities it produced. Over time John D. Rockefeller for solutions to the pressing problems of the day. He was always purchased several more refineries in the area; in 1870 he incor- looking for fresh, talented writers to join his staff. On a trip to porated his holdings as Standard Oil. Pads in the summer of 1892, he bounded up the stairs of Ida As America’s indusl~ boomed in the years following the Tarbell’s apartment building and into her life, changing it for- Civil War and railroads became an ever-more important force, Rockefeller used every adva~atage--legal and illegal--that the McClure asked Tarbell if she would come to New York to market allowed. One tactic was to secure reduced rates from work at his magazine. Reluctant to give up her hard-earned in- railroads by guaranteeing them volume shipments on a regular dependence, she agreed only to submit occasional articles to basis. When other companies refused to join forces with Rock- McClure’s while she completed her biography of Madame Ro- ANNUAL EDITIONS

land. But by 1894, Tarbell was unable to financially support rope where Sam McClure and his family were vacationing herself, and she returned to the United States with her unfin- while he recovered from exhaustion. Tarbell expected to stay ished Madame Roland manuscript and joined the staff of Mc- only a week while she pitched her idea to the publisher, but h"~ Clure’s in New York. asked her to join them in their travels. Finally, after visiting Ida Tarbell returned to a nation still reeling from the panic Switzerland and Italy, MeClure approved Tarbell’s story idea. caused by the stock market crash of 1893. More than 15,000 She later admitted, "It had been a strong thread weaving itself businesses had failed, and at least one third of all manufacturing into the pattern of my life from childhood on?’ Tarbell later ex. workers had lost their jobs. Midwesteru farmers also suffered as plalned to critics who charged that her work was motivated by they faced rising interest rates and failing crop prices. Tarbell’s personal concerns, "We were undertaking what we regarded as own family’s financial distress clouded her homecoming. Her a legitimate piece of historical work. We were neither apolo- father had become an independent oil producer just as Standard gists nor critics, only journalists intent on discovering what had Oil forced an increase in the price of the region’s crude oil. Re- gone into the making of this most perfect of all monopolies." finers were reluctant to buy crude from small, independent producers like Franklin Tarbell, and he had to mortgage the family’s Titusville home to pay his debts. One of his friends committed suicide when his own business failed. The nation as a whole was changing, evolving from a largely agrarian economy into a more industrial one. With the change came abuses--not just the great concentration of wealth in the hands of a few industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie and Rockefeller, but also urban corruption, boss politics, and child labor. The Progressive Moverhent emerged in response to these issues and prompted Congress to pass the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890, making it illegal to monopolize or restrain trade through unfair collaborations or conspiracies. The law was vague, however, and authorities had difficulty enforcing it against America’s powerful industrialists. At McClure’s a team of journalists--Tarbell, Lincoln Stef- fens, William Allen White, and Ray Stannard Baker--reflected Progressive concerns in their articles about some oftbe era’s excesses. Yet not everyone approved of this new breed of journalism. Although he knew and befriended many of the magazine’s writers, including Tarbell, President Theodore Roosevelt publicly complained that these journalists focused only upon society’s evils. "In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress," he said, "you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck- rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth The Ida M. Tarbell Collection, Special Collections, Pellefier Librm7, oftbe floor." The president’s comments gave a name to the new Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania The July 1903 issue of McClure’s contained an install- generation of investigative journalists, with Ida Tarbell the fore- ment of Tarbell’s series on R~ckefeller and the Standard most "Lady Muckraker" of her time. Oil Company. McClure’s January 1903 issue epitomized the work of the muckrakers. Lincoln Steffens contributed an article about polit- ical corruption in Minneapolis, part of his "Shame of the Cities" Tarbell had no shortage of material to draw upon. Congress series. Ray Stannard Baker wrote about corruption and violence had been investigating Standard Oil almost continually since in the labor union movement in a piece called "The Right to the company’s creation in 1870 when it was suspected of re- Work." The issue also included an installment in a sedas by Ida ceiving rebates from railroads and violating free trade. In the Tarbell on "The History of Standard Oil," one of the most im- years since, government investigators had generated volumes of pertant expos6s of the twentieth century. testimony, a massive collection of documentary evidence, as The proliferation of industrial trusts interested McClure’s well as countless newspaper and magazine articles. These re- staff members. They decided the best way to approach the sub- sources provided Tarbell with the foundation for her work, al- ject would be to tell "the story of a typical trust to illustrate how though at first she found the sheer mass of material at her and why the clan grew," recalled Tarbell. "How about the disposal overwhelming. "The task confronting me is such a greatest of them all--the Standard Oil Company?".Tarbeil de- monstrous one that I am staggering a bit under it," she lamented. cided she wanted to tackle the project, and she traveled to Eu- Aided by a young, eager assistant, John Siddall, she spent a year Article 12. Lady Muckraker researching her subject before McClure’s announced the series was on his own ground talking about dividends, dividends of to readers. righteousness." When the talk ended, Tarbell and Siddall Initially Tarbell was going to write the story in three parts-- slipped out to get a good seat in the gallery, from where they in the end she wrote 19. Dissecting the inner workings of Stan- could see the Rockefeller pew. Tarbell noted, "It was plain that dard Oil with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel, she he, and not the minister, was the pivot on which that audience exposed espionage and industrial terrorism. In one example, swung." Tarbell detailed the testimony of Mrs. Butts, whose oil com- TarbeB’s findings strengthened the United States govern- pany had a regular customer in New Orleans. A Standard Oil ment’s case against Standard Oil. Following publication of her representative approached the customer and "made a contract series, President Roosevelt decided to make an example of the with him to pay him $10,000 a year for five years to stop han- great oil trust. On November 15, 1906, the government charged dling the independent oil and take Standard Oil." Tarbell also the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and its 70 affiliates told of a young office boy in a Standard Oil plant who was told with violating the Sherman Anti-Tmst Act. The company and to destroy some company papers when the name of his Sunday its trustees were eventually found guilty of creating a mo- school teacher, an independent oil refiner, caught his eye. The nopoly, conspiring to restrain and control interstate commerce records contained information, collected by railroad freight through the use of railroad rebates and drawbacks, controlling clerks in Standard Oil’s pay, about his teacher’ s oil shipments. pipeBnes, conducting industrial espionage, and illegally elimi- Armed with such inside knowledge, the great trust could act nating competition from the marketplace. Following a series of against its competition by sidetracking rail cars, interfering with appeals, the Supreme Court upheld the original decision against or destroying rivals’ shipments, or pressuring buyers to cancel Standard Oil in May of 1911, and the mighty monopoly was orders, By showing how the corporation worked in collusion broken up. Rockefeller retained stock in Stimdard Oil of New with the railroads and c~refully explaining its elaborate system Jersey and the 33 independent subsidiaries created by the Su- of rebates and "drawbacks," Tarbell meticulously built her case preme Court’s decision. Ironically, the break-up of the tyust against the great monopoly. made Rockefeller the world’s richest man with a net worth of Rockefeller himself refused to meet with the woman he pri- $900 million in 1913. And by the time of his death at age 98 on vately called "Miss Tarbarrel," and he met her series with stony May 23, 1937, John D. Rockefeller was more widely known as silence. One day, while strolling in the grounds of his Cleveland "the world’s greatest philanthropist" than the great "Lion" of home, a friend asked Rockefeller why he did not respond to Tar- the industrial age. bell’s charges. "Not a word!" he interrupted. "Not a word about In addition to prompting t~e government’s suit against Stan- that misguided woman." The he pointed to a worm on the dard Oil, Ida Tarbell" s series, published in two votumes as The ground nearby. "if I step on that worm I will call attention to it," History of the Standard Oil Company in 1904, contributed to Rockefeller said. "ff I ignore it, it will disappear." the passage of new laws to protect competition in the market- Tarbell understood Rockefeller’s need for silence. "His self- place. In 1914 the government established the Federal Trade control has been masterful," she said; "he knows, nobody better, Commission to oversee business activities. that to answer is to invite discussion, to answer is to call atten- Despite an illustrious career--in 1922 the New York Times tion to the facts in the case." This, she was confident, he would included her as one of the "Twelve Greatest Living American not do. She also never feared that Rockefeller would take steps Women "--Ida Tarbell never equaled The History. of Standard to silence her. "What had we to be afraid of?." she declared. Oil, Historian and Rockefeller biographer Allan Nevins de- The journalist’s curiosity got the best of her, however, when clared, "It was the best piece of business history that America John Siddall learned that Rockefeller planned to give a talk in had yet produced." Before Tarbell’s death on January 6, 1944, October 1903 to the Sunday school at the Euclid Avenue Baptist a young history professor asked her, "If you could rewrite your Church in Cleveland. She could not resist the opportunity to get a peek at the man. On that crisp October morning, Tarbelt and book today, what would you change?" Siddall arrived early at the church and awaited Rockefeller’s "Not one word, young man," she proudly replied, "Not one entrance. Tarbell vividly recalled the moment when she first saw him: "We were siring meekly at one side when I was sud- of a striking figure standing in the doolway. There Paula A. Treckel is a professor of history at Allegheny College, Mead- 1 age in his face--the oldest man I had ever seen, I ville, Pennsylvania. She is the author of To Comfort the Heart: Women but what power!" She recalled that his voice was in Seventeenth Century America, and is currently writing a history of e meant what he was saying. He American weddings.