The History of The Standard Oil Company: 2 Volume Set by Ida M. Tarbell; Illustrator-Drawings Plates - 1904

McClure, Phillips & Co, 1904. First Edition. Hardcover. Like New. 2 volume set. 1st edition. 8vo. Red cloth with gold lettering. Top edge gilt. Clean, unmarked pages. xix, 406; xiii, 409. Good binding and cover. Hardcover. Full, unabridged version containing chapters purged from later editions. Howes T-33. <br><br> "This work is the outgrowth of an effort on the part of the editors of McClure's Magazine to deal concretely in their pages with the trust question. In order that their readers might have a clear and succinct notion of the processes by which a particular industry passes from the control of the many to that of the few, they decided a few years ago to publish a detailed narrative of the history of the growth of a particular trust. The Standard Oil Trust was chosen for obvious reasons. It was the first in the field, and it has furnished the methods, the charter, and the traditions for its followers. It is the most perfectly developed trust in existence; that is, it satisfies most nearly the trust ideal of entire control of the commodity in which it deals. Its vast profits have led its officers into various allied interests, such as railroads, shipping, gas, copper, iron, steel, as well as into banks and trust companies, and to the acquiring and solidifying of these interests it has applied the methods used in building up the Oil Trust. It has led in the struggle against legislation directed against combinations. Its power in state and Federal government, in the press, in the college, in the pulpit, is generally recognised. The perfection of the organisation of the Standard, the ability and daring with which it has carried out its projects, make it the pre-eminent trust of the world - the one whose story is best suited to illuminate the subject of combinations of capital. The officers of the company courteously offered to give me all the assistance in their power, an offer of which I have freely taken advantage. In accepting assistance from the Standard men as from independents I distinctly stated that I wanted facts, and that I reserved the right to use them according to my own judgement of their meaning, that my object was to learn more perfectly what was actually done - not to learn what my informants thought of what had been done. It is perhaps not too much to say that there is not a single important episode in the history of the Standard Oil Company, so far as I know it, or a notable step in the growth, which I have not discussed more or less fully with officers of the company." - from Preface.