Companies of four kinds entered the combine of 1882:—
1. Fourteen companies in which the whole of the shares were held by the trustees. Among these were the Atlantic Refining Company, the Standard of Ohio, and the Standard of Pittsburgh. The first of these companies succeeded in recovering its liberty in 1911.
2. Rich private individuals, having an interest in the oil industry and holders of large parcels of shares, such as W.C. Andrews and John Archbold.
3. Twenty-four companies in which the majority of the shares were held by the trustees:—
Central Refining Company of Pittsburgh,
Germania Mining,
Empire Refining,
Keystone Refining,
National Transit Company, etc.
These twenty-four companies placed themselves under the control of the Trust from 1882 onward. Two others have come in under compulsion:—
(1) The Tide-water Pipe-line Company, having constructed pipe-lines itself, entered into fierce competition with the Standard. On October 9, 1883, it was compelled to negotiate with the National Company. Under the resulting contract, it agreed to provide 11-1/2 per cent. of the quantity sent to the ports by pipe-lines as its share of the traffic, and was guaranteed an annual profit of at least half a million dollars for fifteen years.
(2) The Producers' Associated Oil Company, born of a concerted effort of independent producers to fight the Standard, gave in in October, 1887.
4. One other company alone forms the fourth class. The Trust has an interest in this but has never been able, whatever its efforts, to obtain the majority of the shares and to control the company. This is the United States Pipe-Line Company. This company experienced many difficulties and mortifications. After having struggled against the inertia of the railways devoted to the Standard Oil, and spent more than 15,000 dollars on law costs alone, it succeeded in pushing its lines up to Washington, but could never get any further, nor reach the coast; the Standard bought up the intervening territory.
At its zenith, in 1911, when it was declared illegal by the Supreme Court of the United States, the Standard owned 90 per cent. of the pipe-lines and controlled 86-1/2 per cent. of the oil production of America. A single company, the Pure Oil Company, founded in 1895, whose field of exploitation was Germany, was able to maintain its independence. The seventy-five small refineries existing outside the Trust did not refine, all put together, a fifth as much as the Standard. The refinery which the latter possessed at Bayonne was by itself more important than ten of these competing refineries.
The European market was almost completely conquered. Everywhere the Standard operated by means of its subsidiary companies:—
The Anglo-American Oil Company in Great Britain.
The American Petroleum in Holland.
The Deutsche Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft in Germany.
The Société pour la Vente du Pétrole in Belgium.
The Vacuum Oil in Austria-Hungary.
The Societa Italo-Americana per Petrollo in Italy.
The Romana-Americana in Rumania.
The Danske Petroleum Altieselskabet in Denmark.
The Swenska Petroleum Altiebolage in Sweden.
The International Oil in Japan.
In Galicia, the Trust held its own against all similar indigenous enterprises. The Rumanian refiners were obliged to come to an understanding with it; otherwise it would, with its powerful means of pressure, have created a monopoly for itself. And the French Oil Cartel was at its mercy.