oil and crude never fell below the point reached by competitive influences in the former year, though frequently it rose considerably above. Yet it is in this period that the Standard did all its great work in extending markets, in developing by-products, and in introducing the small and varied economies on which it rests its claim to be a great
1879 TO 1889.
Fragment of chart, showing how margin reached in 1879 by competition was raised and sustained for ten years under the monopoly achieved by the Standard Oil Company in 1880. The sudden rise in refined in the fall of 1880 was a purely arbitrary price. Notice that crude was stationary at the time.
public benefactor. The first eight years of its existence had been spent in bold and relentless warfare on its competitors. Competition practically out of the way, it set all its great energies to developing what it had secured. In this period it brought into line the foreign markets and aided in increasing the exports of illuminating oil from 365,000,000 gallons in 1879 to 455,000,000 in 1888; of lubricating, from 3,000,000 to 24,000,000, and yet this great extension of the volume of
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