infrequently this explanation reads: "Is opposed to monopolies." It is impossible to say from documentary evidence how long such a card catalogue has been kept by the Standard; that it has been a practice for at least twenty-five years the following quotation from a letter written in 1903 by a prominent Standard official in the Southwest to one of his agents shows: "Where competition exists," says the official, "it has been our custom to keep a record of each merchant's daily
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/The_History_of_the_Standard_Oil_Company_Vol_2_-_p83.png/400px-The_History_of_the_Standard_Oil_Company_Vol_2_-_p83.png)
The names, figures, and locations on the above form are fictitious. The remarks are copied from cards in possession of the writer.
purchase of bulk oil; and I know of one town at least in the Southern Texas Division where that record has been kept, whether there was competition or not, for the past fifteen years."[1]
The inference from this system of "keeping the eyes open" is that the Standard Oil Company knows practically where
- ↑ Trust Investigation of Ohio Senate, 1898, page 371.
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