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Conservative.
whenever requested , into the large
storage tanks of the company , and is
held for the owner as long as he desires
it. A certificate is given for it , which
can be turned into cash at any time ;
and when sold , it is delivered to the
purchaser at any station on the delivery
lines. A new oilftId was discovered
last ninnur iifnr Pittsburg , and in
three months the production was 70 000
barrels per dny. Yet pipe lines and
storage tanks were built so rapidly that
this enormous product was handled with
scarcely any waste.
The lines to New York deliver to the
refineries at Long Island City and
Bayonne 1.250000 gallons per day.
This is manufactured into a great
variety of products , the principal one
being illuminating oil. Some of the
illuminating oil is barrelled for local
trade , some is shipped to other points iu
tank cars made for the purpose , some is
placed in tin cans boxed iu pine for the
oriental markets ; but the greater part is
pumped directly from the refineries into
steamers carrying oil in bulk , and thus
shipped to European ports , there to be
pumped into huge tanks for further
distribution by tank cars and tank
wagons. The capital invested in this
system of pipe lines , tank ears , and tank
steamers is more than § 50 000 000. By
this system oil cau be placed at the sea
board and on tank steamers at less than
the cost of a few miles of wagon trans
portation under the old system.
The importance of this method of
transportation cannot be overestimated
at the present time. In Russia wells
pour forth petroleum in almost un
limited quantities , and its price at the
well is less than five cents per barrel.
Their system of refining and marketing
is copied from ours. The capital em ?
ployed is large , and Russia is striving
for the markets of Europe and the East.
They already dispose of 1,200,000,000
gallons of the crude product per annum.
Were it not for our pipe-line system ,
our tank steamer system , our cheap
methods of refining and manufacturing
all necessary materials , wo could not
hold the export trade for a single year.
This system could not have" been built
up without a combination of persons
and capital.
The actual cost of refining has been
reduced since 1872 about sixty per cent.
This has been accomplished partly by
the discovery and use of better processes
.aud better machinery , partly by the
elimination of the waste once incident
to the business , and partly by the re
finers' manufacturing for their own
purposes and cheapening the cost of the
materials used in manufacturing oils.
Residuum was formerly used for fuel ;
, * now it is jrado into parafflne wax and
lubricating oils. Naphtha was once little
better than a waste product ; now , as a
-component gas , it lights the great cities
of the laud. , Sulphuric acid is largely
used iu refining , and-fprinerly cost $1.25
per hundred pounds ; the Standard
manufactures its own at a cost of eight
cents per hundred pounds. In 1873 bar
rels cost the trade § 2 515 each ; the
Standard manufactures them now at a
cost of $1 25 each. As 8 500 000 barrels
are used per annum , this item of saving
amounts to $4.000 0 < 10 per year. Tin
cans are now manufactured by the
Standard ar. fifteen cents less per oan
than they cost in 1874. Thirty-six mil
lion cans are used per year , and this
saving amounts to $5.-100 000 annually.
Tims I might speak of paint , glue , tanks ,
htills , pumps and pipes.
Almost everything used in the oil
business is manufactured by some of
the corporations which were created for
the particular purpose. Wliilo the price
of oil has thus been lowered , competi
tion 'has not been destroyed , but is
vigorous and effective. Thousands of
workmen and persons of small cnpital
are sharing the profits of the business ,
the wages paid are above the average ,
and American petroleum is holding its
place in foreign markets. Association
was necessary to accomplish these re
sults. It is necessary to accomplish any
great business eni ? . Wise legislation
and wise judicial exposition will strive
to lessen and eradicate any evils result
ing from association without , destroying
nn instrumentality capable of puchbeno-
ficial results. Even men not accustomed
to clear thinking should be able to de
tect a difference between combinations
designed to repress business and combi
nations for the purpose of carrying on
business.
DECEIT.tt * * * 1gtt !
UNWISE DECEIT. .
maxim that fraud
vitiates any contract into which it
enters. So iu business , when a trade ,
even in a legitimate and beneficial
article , is built up on a fraudulent basis ,
it seems that such trndo is unable to
survive the elimination of the dishonest
element. A few years ago the practice
arose of mixing flour , the standard
bread staple , made from wheat , with a
similar preparation made from corn.
There WHS no hiirm in this ; corn is rich
in nutritive matter , and the chances are
that the resulting mixture was a butter
food-material than the plain flour would
have been , for a good dual of the wheat-
flour is pretty poor stuff , as far as re
gards nutrition. But the millers made
the mistake of trying to pass it off as
pure wheat flour ; instead of selling it
for what it was , as a new , valuable and
cheap food-staple , they put it out under
a name to which it was not entitled.
This may have been necessary in order
to sell it at all , since the public loves to
be fooled ; but the fraud presently bo-
came' too palpable , inasmuch as some ot
this "pure wheat flour" was composed
of a quarter to a third of corn. This
made the broad darker , and the labor-
iug mail concluded.h . t lie was. being
poisoned. This is the same dear intelli
gent laboring man who insists on having
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liis pickles and peas made a beautiful > i
unnatural green with poisonous copper
alts ; who will not touch water from
the city maina , but must drink the
fluid from the diseased well in his back
yard ; who , during the siege of Paris ,
rejected with loathing the horse and
mule-meat that the wise and wealthy
were eating , and spent all his money for
scraps of the few cattle that remained ,
because ho had always been used to
beef.
Complaints of the "adulteration" of
flour , af all events , becameso numer
ous , that congress parsed a very simple
and reasonable Pure Food law , which
did not prohibit the eating of cornmeal -
meal , nor the mingling of the flour of
corn and wheat , but merely required
that anything purporting to bo flour
should bo HO labeled as aceuratoly to
disclose its real composition. And hero
is where the flour dealers and millers
fell down. If thoj ; could not sell corn A
and wheat flour mixed as straight
wheat flour , they would not sell it at
all. It did not seem to occur to thorn
that an excellent food substance had
been evolved , one which was abundant
ly able to stand on its own merits. On
the contrary , by forsaking it , as if in a
panic , the instant that they were forced
to tell what it was , they gave the con
sumer good grounds for supposing that
they had been putting off an injurious
mixture upon him. The fact is , how
ever , that the trade instantly ceased ;
the. laboring man and his children , TO
whose stomnchs had previously been
warmed , without their knowledge or
consent , with the rich juices of Indian
corn , found themselves supplied hence
forth with the purest and thinnest of
patent wheat flour ; aud corn-millers ,
according to the statement of ono of
thorn , found themselves iinablo to dis-
pnso of a pound of their product to the
wheat-millers , who had been taking one-
fifth of their output hitherto for mixing
purposes.
All of which illustrates the devious
ways of trade , and the great fact ,
already mentioned , that the people in
sist upon being fooled ; all of the people
some of the time , and some of the
people all the time.
. < *
During the absence
NOT ON TKIAT. .
sence of the editor
of THE CONSERVATIVE it is only per
mitted us to say that the organs of
Brynnarchy which are assaulting him
ounht to know that Bryan's letter to -"a"
him does not put him on trial. His let
ters are not a matter of consequence ;
Bryan's are , in the eyes of those who
letter"a"
had said repeatedly that Bryan had been
malevolently misrepresented. The ques
tion of veracity was raised by Bryan
aud settled by Bryan's letter ,