Lady Muckraker
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Article 12 Lady Muckraker 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 na- tion’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 ed- itor. 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.