Expository Piece

This exhibit you see in front of you is about a group of people known as the Robber Barons. No, there not a mischievous group of city dwellers that rob unprotected people at night. There are a bunch of monopolistic businessman. What do is it mean to commit monopoly, well; it’s buying out all of your competitors. One of the modern robber barons might be Bill Gates, he has been charged for monopoly a couple of times. Still don’t get it? Think about the actual board game. Monopoly is about buying out all of the places on the board until your opponent is flat broke.

John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in the world, with a total net worth of $128 billion, was a robber baron. He owned a company called Standard Oil, today it is known as such companies like Chevron, Exxon, Sohio, etc. Over the years, Standard Oil was the best oil refinery in the world, but after an exposé of Standard Oil, in the novel by Ida Tarbell, The History of Standard Oil. People got curious.

Standard oil was broken up in 1911, after the congress split it up for monopolistic acts. It got split up into 34 different companies, three of which I stated above. The reason your company could get split up for monopoly is because it is simply unfair. Think of it like the gaming console companies. Let’s say Nintendo, creator of the Wii, bought out Sony, producers of the Play Station, and Microsoft, creators of the Xbox. If Nintendo was the only game producer, they could raise their prices to incredible amounts, because there were the only games available, and there had no competitors. Basically if you wanted to buy a game, it would have to be Nintendo games, so they could mess with the consumer all they wanted. They could also start making the quality of the games lower, because again, there are no competitors. That’s what the term “robber baron” means and why it is against the law to commit monopoly.

New Article

THE CLEVELAND TIMES

Standard Oil Broken Up for Monopolistic Acts

What will happen to the millions of dollars Rockefeller has?

As of 1911, Standard Oil, one of the largest oil companies in all of the USA has been broken up for monopolistic acts, after various attacks by many, the biggest by Ida Tarbell, with her exposé of Standard Oil, The History of Standard Oil. In 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States said that Standard Oil, which by then still had a 64% market share, originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. The Cleveland based company got split up into some companies like Sohio, Comoco, Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, etc.

Although John D. Rockefeller, the master mind to the monopoly of Standard Oil, shed all of his policy involvement of Standard Oil in 1896, he still remained president, and kept his stock. Another push against Standard Oil was Ohio. Ohio made an anti-trust law, to rebel against the Standard Oil Trust, a way that Standard Oil to centralize their holdings

They had vigorous attack against Standard Oil. Eventually Standard Oil left Ohio. That led to other states that were victims of the Standard Oil monopoly and the Standard Oil Trust to start to pull out. Still though, despite what everyone else wanted, Standard Oil still owned 90% of kerosene producers.

At one of Standard Oil’s highest points, it owned 22 of 26 of all Cleveland refineries. It may have been that Standard’s success really brought attention to all the muckrakers, especially one, Ida Tarbell. Ida Tarbell says that she did not intend to make such a riot with Standard Oil. “I never had an animus against their size and wealth, never objected to their corporate form. I was willing that they should combine and grow as big and wealthy as they could, but only by legitimate means. But they had never played fair, and that ruined their greatness for me.”* Ida Tarbell’s father was taken out of business by Standard Oil. Obviously Ida Tarbell didn’t expect to cause such a “problem” for Standard Oil, but she did. Some people, like Pratt and Rogers, entrepreneurs who got bought out by Standard Oil are more then likely happy with the break up of the monopolistic company.

*Quote by Ida Tarbell from wikipedia.org

Feedback Sept. 10-14

In the stock market game, I did really well, receiving 309 dollars and getting an A-, third best in the class. I think one of the advice that really worked was, buy low sell high. It was true because, theres no reason to buy a stock that is worth 40 dollars, and have it go up to 41 dollars. Also, you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Conor put a lot of investment into Comstock Silver, he has a gut feeling that it was gonna do good. He was wrong. In some cases though, if you were lucky, that might work. If you were to buy tons of Drexel and Morgan, you would be insanely rich, getting a 40 dollar profit per share you bought. Also, you need to spend money to make money. Thats just common sense. You cant just expect to make a profit without doing anything. Overall though, I made a 229 dollar profit. Hooray! Probably the let affective piece of advice was "don't let your emotion get the best of you." I didn't really find that necessary. It basically said that you shouldnt get sad and you shouldnt get happy. But overall, I think that the tips did help us. Thank you, Mr. Coyle!

Pratt Letter

Dear Mr. Rockefeller,
I, Charles Pratt, am disgusted by your monopolistic acts, seventeen years of hard work gone to waste when some hot shot gluttonous robber baron comes along, trying to get grasp of every single oil company. My Unlike you, I had to work to gain money, not buy everything out. Incase you forgot because you were to busy counting money I moved to the USA in 1850, and soon became accustom to the American lifestyle. Soon before long, I had bought an oil refinery from two young men, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Ellis but before long; they were heavily in debt to me, being unable to give their end of the deal. Ellis gave up, but Rogers came to New York to tell me personally that he would pay back the debts he owed me. Now, that impressed me so much, I felt like this was someone that I was more then willing to hire. After he paid the debts, sure enough I hired him as my foreman of my Brooklyn refinery, and promised him a partnership if we made over fifty thousand dollars a year. And that we did thus came Pratt and Rogers Co. The Rogers continued to live frugally and young Henry worked very hard. Abbie brought his meals to the work, and often he would sleep but three hours a night rolled up, rocking back and forth in a dusty down blanket in the corner of a freezing cold room. Sometimes his wife would worry about him, she would constantly ask about him. Henry Rogers would wake up at the crack of dawn and went straight to work. I would bet you anything that he would skip at least one meal everyday so he could get some errands done. Then you came along. Sure, you can say that hard work pays off, and when we were forced to join Standard Oil, that we all got paid, but I assure you that Rogers and I could have out done you any day. I think that you truly ruined the oil business; you ruined the good feeling of having a partner, waking up everyday bright and early, and head out to work. You ruined the feel of seeing your employees smile as they come from their warm cozy homes. You demolished the love of going home after work. There were no more companies that were run by someone who wasn’t obsessed with money. Now all I see everyday is the morose faces of those who hate their job but are only doing it to raise money for the kids. Most of them working for minimum wage any way. Some of them would have tattered tops on, others wouldn’t even have tops. Some came without shoes, but most importantly they all came without a smile. This letter is to get your attention; I hope you learned that there is more to life then money and oil. Thanks John, I hope you learned that money isn’t everything, but I don’t blame you, it would be hard to get it through your thick bald head of yours!
I despise you,
-Charles Pratt

Goals Update

I think right now, I am doing fine in Humanities. I have 7 AR points, and I am nearly done with a 8 point book. Also, one of my goals, to improve my reading comprehension skills, has also been met. I fully understood the Outsiders, and got a great score on the final project, a 39/40. I got good grades on my Outsiders Bio Poem. I'm shooting to get 20 AR points in AR this quarter, and I think I can do that, if I keep up with the reading pace I am in right now. I think that I have completed most of my Humanities goals, I've been comprehending all my books, and been ahead of AR, so far. Yay!

John D Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller, born July 8, 1839, was one of the first billionaires ever. Born and raised in Richford, New York, He founded Standard Oil. A company based on transporting, refining, marketing, and producing oil. He Have a Net Worth of $128. John D. Rockefeller died on May 23, 1937 at the age of 97.

How was your early life?
I was the second of six children. My father was a salesman, selling patent medicine, such as Cancer Cures. When I was a boy, my family moved from Richford to Moravia and, in 1851, to Owego, where I attended Owego Academy. In 1853, my family bought a house in Strongsville, a town close to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1902, an audit showed I was worth about $200 million—compared to the total national wealth that year of $101 billion.

What exactly was Standard Oil?
By the end of the Civil War, Cleveland was one of the five main refining centers in the U.S. Eight years later; I started Standard Oil, which was rapidly growing into the most profitable refineries in Cleveland. In 1872, Standard Oil had absorbed 22 of the 26 refineries in Cleveland. If a company denied an offer from me, I would show them how good Standard Oil was and made the threat that if a company didn’t agree, I would run them out of business. Most of them agreed to become a part of Standard Oil.

How did you commit monopoly?
Standard Oil gradually gained control of all the refineries of America. In 1882, Rockefeller's lawyers created an original form of partnership to merge their holdings, giving birth to the Standard Oil Trust. The partnership's size and wealth drew much attention. Despite improving the quality and availability of kerosene products while greatly reducing their cost to the public (the price of kerosene dropped by nearly 80% over the life of the company), Standard Oil's business practices created intense controversy.

What were the effects of your monopoly?
One of the most effective attacks on Rockefeller and his firm was the 1904 publication of The History of the Standard Oil Company, by Ida Tarbell. Tarbell's father had been driven out of the oil business during the South Improvement Company affair. Her book took a huge bite out of Standard Oil. By 1896, I shed all of my policy involvement in the affairs of Standard Oil; however I retained my nominal title as president until 1911; but I kept my stock. Standard Oil was later separated into 34 different companies, including, Conoco, Amoco, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Sohio

Are you as bad as they say?
No, I gave10% of my paycheck to my church. As my wealth grew, so did my giving, primarily to educational and public health causes, but also for basic science and the arts. In 1884, I provided major funding for a college in Atlanta for black women that became Spelman College, $80 million to the University of Chicago, and many other donations.

Pros and Cons of the IR

Pros

• Made things easier to produce
• Gave a lot of work opportunities
• Started more ideas, therefore leading to machines
• Began the use of assembly lines, which now prove to be very effective
• Made commodities more abundant
• Created the idea of Steam-Powered engines

Cons

• Conditions were risky
• Made a lot of pollution
• Endangered a lot of people
• Made bad quality items
• Made living conditions worse and worse
• Had long work hours
• Started controlling peoples lives

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