Ida Tarbell

“ We sincerely trust that the investigation, which is as much demanded for the honour of the sitting members as for that of the Senate or the state of Ohio, may result in vindicating his title to his seat and the good name of the Legislature that elected him.
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"How can a question of bribery ever be raised or ever be investigated if the arguents against this investigation prevail? You do not suppose that the men who bribe or the men who are bribed will volunteer to furnish evidence against themselves? ”

“ If the oil producers had been making money at this time it is quite possible that they would have paid little attention to the profits of the National Transit Company. The service they got was about as perfect as any human machine could render, and they would probably have recognised this and been willing to pay high if they too had been prosperous. But the condition of the oil producer in these days was in glaring contrast to that of Mr. Rockefeller. They had piled up oil until there were in 1886 over 33,000,000 barrels on hand. ”

“ The Republicans had come out with an anti-trust plank in their platform; the Democrats, in response to Mr. Cleveland's message, were declaring the tariff the greatest trust-builder in existence, and calling on their opponents for reform there if they were sincere in their anti-trust attitude. In this agitation the Standard Oil Company undoubtedly exerted its influence against all trust investigation and legislation. The charge became general that they were helping the Democrats. This is why they wanted a Democratic Senate. ”

“ Political purity and perpetuity permit no complacency. These pernicious foreign elements must be eradicated, and until they are no Democrat will enter the capitol of Ohio or of the nation. The rottenness that uncovered itself last night has not its confines in Ohio. ”

“ The Carroll County Chronicle in commenting on the election said: "It is a great mistake to suppose Standard Oil has captured the Democratic party of Ohio. It may have captured a score or two of men elected to the Legislature, but they are not the Democracy of Ohio by a long shot. When the British got General Benedict Arnold they imagined they had captured the United States army, but it was a mistake." ”

“ It cannot be done until the Senate issues its process. No unwilling witness has ever yet been compelled to testify; no process has gone out which could cross state lines. The Senate is now to determine, as the law of the present case and as the precedent for all future cases, as to the great crime of bribery—a crime which poisons the waters of republican liberty in the fountain—that the circumstances which here appear are not enough to demand its attention. ”

“ It was a machine where everybody was kept on his mettle by an extraordinary system of competition, where success met immediate recognition, where opportunity was wide as the world's craving for a good light to cheer its hours of darkness. The machine was pervaded and stimulated by the consciousness of its own power and prosperity. ”

“ It was a matter of constant comment in Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania that the Standard was active in all elections, and that it "stood in" with every ambitious young politician, that rarely did an able young lawyer get into office who was not retained by the Standard. ”

“ Rockefeller for what they believed to be a conspiracy against their interests. The way in which the Billingsley Bill, as it was called from the name of its father, proposed to punish the Standard was to make it a criminal offence to charge in excess of certain rates it fixed—ten cents a barrel for gathering and delivering oil to storing points (the current rate was twenty cents) ; one-sixtieth of one per cent. per barrel a day for storage, with no storage charge for the first thirty days (one-half of one per cent. was the current rate) ; one-half of one per cent. ”

“ Within my knowledge there are but two Democrats who have ever been stockholders in that company." Farther on Mr. Payne interpolated this irrelevant remark: "Not only are the majority Republicans, but they are very liberal in their philanthropic contributions to charities and benevolent works, and I venture the assertion that two gentlemen in that company have donated more money for philanthropic and for benevolent purposes than all the Republican members of the Senate put together." ”

“ Or are Democrats expected to condemn corruption only when practised by Republicans, and to condone, defend, and cover it up when practised by Democrats, or when it is found only in the Democratic party? ”

“ Its backers were Senator Payne's own son, Oliver H. Payne, at that time treasurer of the Standard Oil Company, and Colonel Thompson, a prominent personage in the same concern. Their lieutenants were also members of the company in one capacity or another. Large sums of money were alleged to have been circulated. There was a rumour that Oliver Payne said the election cost him $100,000. It was claimed that it could be proved that a check for $65,000 had been cashed in Cleveland by one of the men most prominent in the Payne boom, and that the whole sum had been spent in Columbus. ”

“ Rockefeller would not be allowed much longer to work in the dark. He was to be dragged into the open, much as he might deplore it, to explain what his trust really was, to prove to a suspicious and hostile public that he had a right to exist.
↑ Congressional Globe, September 12, 1888, pages 8520-8604. ↑ Report Number 1490, United States Senate, Forty-ninth Congress. This report, and Miscellaneous Documents Number 106, United States Senate, Forty-ninth Congress, 1886, contain the evidence of bribery collected by the Ohio Legislature and the majority and minority reports of the committee. ”

“ The Standard Oil Company is a very remarkable and wonderful institution. It has accomplished within the last twenty years of commercial enterprise what no other company or association of modern times has accomplished, but, Mr. ”

“ Out of their burst of passion was to grow a solid determined effort, but for the moment they were defeated, and the defeat, which really was merited, was another added to their series of just and unjust complaints against Mr. ”