Talk:Standard Oil/Archives/2015

This basis for this article is inaccurate

There was never a Standard Oil that was dissolved. The Standard Oil Co. that was incorporated in Ohio in 1870 became a member of 2 different trusts and it was one of the companies whose stock was held by Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1899.

Details of the Supreme Court case involved are on Findlaw here: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=221&page=1

The judicial decree was "... against seven individual defendants, the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, thirty-six domestic companies, and one foreign company which the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey controls by stock ownership; these thirty-eight corporate defendants being held to be parties to the combination found to exist" The remedies were: " The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey was enjoined from voting the stocks or exerting any control over the said thirty-seven subsidiary companies, and the subsidiary companies were enjoined from paying any dividends as to the Standard Company, or permitting it to exercise any control over them by virtue of the stock ownership or power acquired by means of the combination. The individuals and corporations were also enjoined from entering into or carrying into effect any like combination which would evade the decree. Further, the individual defendants, the Standard Company, and the thirty-seven subsidiary corporations, were enjoined from engaging or continuing in interstate commerce in petroleum or its products during the continuance of the illegal combination."

The original Standard Oil Co. continued to exist as an Ohio corporation for many years- in fact, it may still exist, although BP Oil acquired all assets of the corporation in 1987. There is a separate page for this company (AKA Standard Oil of Ohio) in Wikipedia.

I don't know how this can be fixed. Obviously, much of its content should be moved to the pages for the corporations involved but that may leave some details out that should be documented somewhere.

Dandlyin (talk) 15:45, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting history, but the situation as you describe it perhaps does not require such a draconian solution as breaking up this article. You note, and you certainly seem to know what you are talking about, that some/most/all of the post-breakup companies were already separately incorporated before the breakup, sometimes, in the case of SOHIO, many years before. Be that as it may, although the corporations were legally separate, before the breakup they were run more or less as divisions of a single company. Because the Rockefellers, Henry Rogers, and others ran the various Standards as if they were one company, the group performed as if it were one company, and it makes sense to describe it that way, as this article does. Breaking up the article into each separate component would certainly not convey the growth of the group, or its great importance to the 19th century oil industry. I believe that therefore this article should be kept more-or-less intact. It is my understanding - correct me if I am wrong - that the problem arose because early state incorporation laws allowed the corporation to operate only within the state where it was incorporated. To get around this, the Standard Oil trust simply incorporated separately in each state, but ran the separate corporations as if they were parts of one company. Proposed solution: simply rename the article Standard Oil trust. Very little else would have to be changed in this article. In the subsidiary articles, for accuracy, it should be noted that their legal incorporations were pre-breakup, although they did not function as independent corporations until the breakup. Plazak (talk) 19:56, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's interesting and intentionally complex- John D. and his lawyers made it so. The government's case against the firms was a 23-volume set of several thousand pages of details that had been accumulated during nearly 40 years of operation. I considered the solution you suggest but there were 2 Standard Oil trusts before the creation of the holding company operated by Standard Oil of New Jersey. Neither of the trusts was dissolved, rather they were replaced by new organizations. Most of the data shown in the text box is specific to Standard Oil of Ohio and should be moved to that page- with the correction that it was not dissolved. There were many more corporations held by Standard Oil of New Jersey than those who were found guilty- 37 or so were not found guilty but all were required to cease collusion with one another and Standard Oil of New Jersey was ordered to restore their original stock. As they say, "I am not a lawyer". We might need one or more to decide how all this should be reorganized.

Dandlyin (talk) 01:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I think our different perspectives stem from different perceptions of the word "trust." You seem to be using it to describe a specific legal corporate structure, such as Standard of New Jersey's control of the rest at the time of the breakup. And you may very well be correct. I was using "trust" in a more informal, but very functional sense of a unified control by Rockefeller et al., regardless of the legal structures, which shifted over time as Rockefeller found necessary or convenient to excersize control over the group. If trust is the wrong word for the ongoing unified control of the Standard Oil group of companies, then I am in error. There must be some good word for it. If not, then perhaps the article should be renamed Standard Oil trusts (plural) to reflect the fact you bring up that there were more than one trust, presumably succeeding one another but all performing the same function. Regards, Plazak (talk) 05:53, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say, I don't know how to fix this problem but the facts show that there was never a Standard Oil company that was dissolved and the contents of the text box are a mixture of the original Standard Oil Co. incorporated in Ohio combined with later management under Standard Oil of New Jersey. Perhaps we need others to weigh in with their opinions on the proper course to be pursued.Dandlyin (talk) 13:41, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. What does everyone else think? Plazak (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

We follow the RS and they say it was dissolved: 1) Isham, The Dissolution of the Standard Oil Company, 1900-1912 (1935); 2) Olien (2000) " Standard Oil had been "buttressed" by dissolution"; 3) Historical Dictionary of the Petroleum Industry (2009) Page 473: "the Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil dissolved into 34 independent companies."; 4) The American Economy: A Historical Encyclopedia (2011) " By the time Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) dissolved in 1911...."; 5) Yergin The Prize: " the far-reaching implications of the break-up of Standard Oil and the resulting restructuring of the industry. Just before the dissolution...."; 6) Economics for Competition Lawyers (2011 p 448: "the Supreme Court ordered in 1911 that Standard Oil Company of New Jersey be dissolved and split into 34 companies." Rjensen (talk) 22:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I have provided a link to the exact wording of the Supreme Court's decision. This article clearly misstates it and the history of the original 1870 Standard Oil Co. corporation. I'm disappointed that anyone wants to keep it this way but I'm done arguing about it.Dandlyin (talk) 22:04, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules are clear: use reliable secondary sources rather than disputed primary sources like court rulings. Rjensen (talk) 03:03, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

NPOV

I would like to submit a neutrality dispute for this article, on the grounds that it portrays Standard Oil basically as an evil corporation out to destroy other businesses. This is an encyclopedia; its job is to give information, not preach public opinion. RichardSagers 07:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There is a sort of dogma about Standard Oil Is Bad, akin to that against Microsoft. Indeed, the company was more a victim of its competitors' PR campaigns than it was actually evil. And yes, it had many competitors, even at the time it was being broken up for being a supposed monopoly. --Kaz 21:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

the details on Standard's misbehavior come from the federal indictment, which was upheld by the district court, the court of appeals and the Supreme Court--and by most historians as well. Rjensen 21:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

That is irrelevant to the question of the tone of this article. It should be neutral, and should include any relevant details regarding Standard, including the good and neutral. The company was more than the contents of the indictment, even aside from the political motivation therein. --Kaz 18:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

When you get convicted of crimes in federal court--yes indeed that is of great historical importance. The article makes sources clear when it quotes court documents. Let's not coddle criminals here--after you're proven guilty in court and lose your appeals, you are guilty. Rjensen 18:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Historians may agree with the Supreme Court antitrust ruling but economists may not. It wouldn't be the first time the government had made a colossal mistake... It also doesn't represent the controversy over whether muckraker Ida Tarbell was reporting factually or making up some of her more outrageous claims. Anyway, one and a half paragraphs to the opposing view, which doesn't seem to be fairly explained or linked to, versus the rest of the (rather large) page with clear anti-corporate bias doesn't seem to appropriately represent the controversy, still a hotly debated one 95 years after the court ruling. It would probably help to move details of the court case to its own page. --Error28 15:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's keep the court case. The company engaged in criminal acts and was convicted in one of the biggest trials in American history. People come to the article to find out about that central fact. Rjensen 21:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Although the court decision on the actions of Standard Oil, the article still lacks the benefit of another point of view. Not a word is said about the benefits of the Standard Oil "monopoly," or whether operating a successful company ought to be considered a criminal act. 173.67.22.42 (talk) 00:06, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Documented facts (such as the court case) should not be deleted. NPOV is best achieved not by deleting verifiable facts, but by adding others to show both sides (assuming that there are, indeed, two sides; no one would put an NPOV tag on the article on Al Capone because it shows him in an unfavorable light). If you can cite historians or economists in defense of Standard, that would be a worthwhile addition to the article. Plazak (talk) 14:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Just wondered if an antitrust lawyer added the clichéd and ever meaningless term “anti-competitive” and wondered if this constitutes a PoV violation? --Simpsons contributor (talk) 16:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

No. No it would not. Anymore than a chemist would be "biased" by contributing to an article on chemistry or an english professor biased for contributing to an article on english. An antistrust lawyer is an expert on antitrust laws, and it is an absurdity to claim that expertise constitute bias 59.167.111.154 (talk) 18:35, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Factual Error

The original Standard Oil Company has NOT been dissolved. The original Standard Oil Company was incorporated in 1870 and was commonly known as Sohio. The original Standard Oil Company remained independent until its merger with BP and still exists as a subsidiary of BP. See the Ohio Secretary of State's Corporate Records at:

http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:0::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:3675

It was the Standard Oil Trust, which owned the stock in the various Standard Oil companies, that was dissolved in 1911. After the trust was dissolved, each of the Standard Oil companies became independent.

dirtyharry667 (talk) 04:40, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think so. My recollection is that the ownership of the companies formerly owned by the Trust was transferred to a corporation called the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. That company was the parent company, the holding company, at the time of the Supreme Court decision in 1911. At least, that's my memory from reading about it years ago. Famspear (talk) 01:19, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

New sources/citations

Hey, while searching out the source of a quote in this article, I found a primary document that I think might be important to cite. It's titled Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Petroleum Industry: Prices and Profits. August 5, 1907. It's available for free on Google books. I would add info for it in myself, but I'm not sure how to do citations here and I really don't want to mess up the citations that are already there. It's the source of the quote about Standard Oil's unfair pricing practices and likely more. You can view it here: https://books.google.com/books?id=eB1FAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, the relevant quote is on page 39. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.249.178.120 (talk) 00:49, 11 September 2015 (UTC)