History That Doesn't Suck - 113: A Square Deal (pt. 2): Consumer Protection–The FDA, & Ida Tarbell muckrakes Standard Oil

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

“In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress you may recall the description of the Man with the Muck Rake …” This is the story of another “C” in Teddy’s Square Deal: “consumer protection.” The nation is grappling with new ideas on how involved the Federal Government should be in the lives of US citizens. Earthquake and fire levels San Francisco but no one expects executive action. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is torn on the Constitutionality of New York’s Bakeshop Act and TR’s Chicago meatpacking investigators—sent largely in response to Upton Sinclair’s stomach-turning, based-on-real-events novel The Jungle—have found such deplorable conditions Americans largely welcome a new federal regulatory body called the Food and Drug Administration. But amid protecting consumers, we aren’t without another trust to bust. An investigative reporter named Ida Tarbell is looking into JD Rockefeller’s business practices at Standard Oil. Has John swindled independent oilmen to build his empire? Or was it just good business? Once more, the question will go all the way to the highest court in the land. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Red One. We're coming at you. Is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped? You're gonna help us find him. You can't trust this guy. He's on the list.

Is that Naughty Lister? Naughty Lister? Dwayne Johnson. We got snowmen! Chris Evans. I might just go back to the car. Let's save Christmas. I'm not gonna say that.

Say it. Alright. Let's save Christmas. There it is. Only in theaters November 15th. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and as in the classroom, my goal here is to make rigorously researched history come to life as your storyteller. Each episode is the result of laborious research with no agenda other than making the past come to life as you learn. If you'd like to help support this work, receive ad-free episodes, bonus content,

and other exclusive perks, I invite you to join the HTDS membership program. Sign up for a seven-day free trial today at htdspodcast.com slash membership, or click the link in the episode notes. It's about 5.10 a.m., Wednesday, April 18th, 1906, in San Francisco, California, and Emma Burke is comfy in her warm bed. She stirred when her husband, Bart, got up a moment ago and made his way across their posh fourth-story apartment to heat some water on the kitchen's gas stove. But he was careful to pull the bedroom door shut on his way out. It's the little things in a relationship, you know?

Those small, loving gestures. Bart's law practice might require him to rise early today, but he's happy to let his wife catch a bit more shut-eye. Too bad that's not how this morning's going to go. Only minutes later, vicious shaky throws Emma's bed against the wall. Adrenaline pulses through the suddenly alert San Franciscan as she clings to the bed's footboard

while stepping onto the vibrating floor. Emma next reaches out, grabs hold of the door and pulls. But it's stuck. Art pushes from the other side. No dice. Not even the couple's combined efforts can force the door. Just then, the building's continued twists throws the door open. The reunited husband and wife cling to each other and the doorframe for dear life. But what of their child? Looking across their reception room, Emma sees their terrified son. Bart motions for him to occupy a nearby doorframe.

The ashen-faced boy readily complies. The shaking grows harder. Dishes crack, glass shatters, plaster cracks, pictures soar, bookcases fall, and the piano lunges across the parlor. Emma is sure they're all about to die. But then, after the longest, less than a minute of her life, the shaking stops. The family dresses quickly.

Emma will later reflect, what change in values? I had no thought for the dress I had cherished the day before. I was merely considering what was warmest and most substantial, a coarse wool skirt and a long coat. She grabs cash, diamonds, puts them in her hand satchel, then carefully descends the four floors to the street with her husband and son. The world that greets the Burke family isn't the one they knew. People are huddled in the middle of the brick and broken glass-lidded street. Electric poles and buildings alike stand at odd angles. Emma and others gather loose

bricks and make fire pits to cook some breakfast. But these small, controlled fires aren't the only ones burning. All across San Francisco, damaged gas lines, fallen electric wires, overturned ovens, smashed oil lamps, and crumbling chimneys breathe life into countless uncontrolled fires. In no time, flames are licking their way up damaged buildings, then leaping to neighboring structures. San Francisco's 600 firemen jump into action. But there's little they can do. The same earthquake that unleashed these gas, oil, and electrical fires has also destroyed

alarms and telephone systems, and burst water pipes. It's hard to fight fires when the water doesn't flow. Aftershocks are making everything worse, as is the fire department's loss of its leader. A wall of the California hotel collapsed on engine house number three, mortally wounding San Francisco fire chief Dennis Sullivan. So city and military leaders take a drastic step to fight the fire. They turn to dynamite. They hope that blowing up buildings will create fire breaks and stop the blazes.

But as police, militia, volunteer firefighters, and others suddenly find themselves untrained demolitionists, this doesn't seem to be helping. Flames continue to engulf the city. It's now early afternoon. Charles Kendrick is trekking through rubble-filled streets toward his parents' home. He's astounded at the sight of City Hall in shambles. Nothing gets his attention though, like the collapsed building at the corner of 8th and Market. He can hear survivors calling out from the wreckage. Charles and a dozen other strangers try to lift the massive beams holding these people captive, but it's no use. Mere human muscle can't lift such weight, and soon, the intolerable heat of the approaching inferno

forces the would-be helpers retreat. Charles will long be haunted with thoughts of the poor souls they couldn't save. Later, Charles ascends Knob Hill. It's a posh area. Impressive mansions built by the Transcontinental Railroad's Central Pacific Big Four dot the landscape. Yet, they aren't what draws the eye today. Charles describes the scene he witnesses in stark silence with others. The entire city, from Kearney Street to the bay, and north and south as far as the eye could see, was one solid mass of fire, with the big buildings of the financial district shooting flames high into the heavens. The whole scene was terrifying, yet majestic and awesome beyond the power of words. A great city vanishing in flame. And still, the fire grows.

Later that night, it will turn all of these majestic railroad-funded Nob Hill mansions to ash. But as Charles exhibits the best of San Francisco, others exhibit the worst. Thieves snatch bread from hungry children. More nefarious actors cut wedding band adorned fingers right off of unconscious and dead women. In response, military, police,

and volunteer citizen patrols receive permission to execute looters on the spot. Yet, like the use of dynamite, such a loose order in the hands of untrained volunteers has disastrous effects as the newly deputized shoot San Franciscans sifting through the rubble of their own homes and businesses. The order is soon dialed back to apply solely to trained soldiers,

but not until several innocents die unnecessary deaths. Priests take confessions. Chinatown's temples fill with incense and offerings. Droves of refugees make their way to the tent cities popping up at Golden Gate Park and the U.S. Army post known as the Presidio. Among them is the Burke family. Tonight, Emma will sleep under a eucalyptus tree in the park.

She's glad to have her warm coat. The fire rages for days. By the time it's done, some 80% of San Francisco's buildings are charred and fallen. More than half of the city's 400,000 residents are homeless, with countless sad souls searching Golden Gate Park's 20-by-100-foot message board in hopes of a note from their lost family member or loved one. The death toll is thought to be in the thousands. San Francisco will never be the same. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck.

I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. San Francisco will rebuild, and gloriously so. Principally, insurance companies will have to pony up, and it will receive help from other states, private donations, including wealthy robber baron types, the Red Cross, and the U.S. military. President Theodore Roosevelt won't do much here, though. It's not that he doesn't care. It's that presidential intervention isn't expected. But today, as we continue into our second part

of Teddy's square deal, that is, with consumer protection, we will see Americans wrestling anew with what role they want the federal government to take. We'll start with food and drugs. This includes a legal battle over bread regulation in Lochner v. New York and disturbing details from the meatpacking industry prior to the Food and Drug Act. Actually, the bread is rather gross too, so finish that sandwich before we continue. You've been warned. And while both of these tales include investigative reporters,

soon to be called muckrakers, we'll spend the last half of the episode bonding with one in particular named Ida Tarbell as she investigates John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. Is it a corrupt, monopolistic trust that needs busting? And can one woman's reporting bring a global company to its knees? We'll find out. But first, we begin one decade back with a visit to a Gilded Age New York bakery. You're done eating, right? Good. In that case, rewind.

It's a warm summer day in 1890s New York City. A group of no more than four men are gathered in a dark, dank, sweltering cellar underneath one of the many Lower East Side tenements that so many impoverished Irish, German, and other immigrants call home. The floor is made of dirt. The ceiling is low, likely between five and a half to eight feet off the ground. The lighting is poor, ventilation abysmal, and pipes from the building sinks, baths, and toilets

are all exposed, leaking, and emptying out right here. Ugh, no wonder this place was only intended for storage. But storage isn't what brings these men down to this veritable dungeon. They're professional bakers, and this is their bakery. Ducking beneath the ceiling, they measure out flour, then mix it and a pinch of salt into a prepared yeast water mix. Time to stir. But in doing so, does the baker notice if a drip falls from his sweat-covered brow or

the sewage pipe above into his bowl below? Better question, would that matter? A rat scurries in the corner while the baker scrapes the dough onto a flat, flour-dusted surface, near what we hope are seeds, not droppings, then thrusts his unwashed hands into the thickened white mixture, folding it over and over. While kneaded, the dough rests, rises, and finally is placed in the oven. Ah, the smell of piping hot bread now mixes with the odors escaping from the sludge and sewage emptying into the same room.

And the bread is about to get even closer to that foul smell source. As the hard-working bakers continue to scurry, prepping more dough with the same speed as the rats, they take these first loaves from the oven and set them out to cool on wooden benches. The benches are actually wooden frames the bakers built around the sewer pipes. And after sitting here,

capturing particles originating from these pipes, the bread goes up to the street to be sold and eaten. So we've lost our appetites, but here's the big question. How has turn-of-the-century NYC come to have such unsanitary bakeries? Well, as we know, the post-Civil War, Second Industrial Revolution has brought remarkable changes, many of which we've witnessed in past episodes. The rapid, country-traversing transit

of the Transcontinental Railroad and the conquest of the night with Thomas Alva Edison's commercially viable Leipold. But as people abandon the country for rising industrial centers, this further industrialization is also overhauling how the nation eats. Consider this.

In 1790, the year after George Washington took office as the nation's first president, over 90% of the United States' 4 million inhabitants lived on farms. Now, just one industrial century later, only 40% of the workforce is engaged in the agricultural labor needed to feed the nation's 76 million people. Now, being removed from fresh farm food is a change in and of itself, but industrial workers are also moving into tenements that rarely have ovens.

So as this shift to city dwelling continues, Americans are literally losing the ability to bake and eat the staff of life itself, bread. Now if you're a fan of hard breads, biscuits, cookies, crackers, and hardtack, you're in good shape. The biggest hard bread bakeries joined forces in the late 1890s to form the National Biscuit Company, or Nabisco for short. Nabisco will introduce various hard, long-lasting goodies in the next few years. In 1912, they'll give us the Oreo. Baking fresh bread for urban centers is another matter, though.

Profit margins are slim, so New York City's master or boss bakers get inventive by renting a space without competition, the uninhabitable, sewage-emptying cellars of tenements. Landlords jump at this added revenue prospect, and by the early 1900s, 87% of the Big Apple's bakers are baking underground. And this isn't only bad news for those opposed to their bread being exposed to dirt, excrement, and rodents. These conditions

are also unhealthy for the bakers. These often poor, immigrant, subterranean bakers put in long hours, well in excess of 70 hours per week, sometimes working as many as 15 hours a day. Lacking quality or, at times, any ventilation, they also breathe in flour dust and fumes. Many die from consumption, which is the 19th century term for lung infections and usually refers to tuberculosis.

Moreover, the lighting is terrible and the temperatures are extreme. Summers spell sweltering heat while winters welcome freezing cold. These are nightmarish conditions, but bakeries are essential to an urban center, and many immigrant master bakers can't fathom how else they could afford to do their work. Edward Marshall has a bone to pick here, though. An investigative reporter, he digs into the underground world of baking, then publishes his expose in the New York Press.

Public outcry, or at least disgust, follows, and in 1895, the New York State Legislature passes its Bake Shop Act. This creates some minimum sanitary standards that bakers must meet and stipulates that bakery workers shall not work, quote, more than 60 hours in one week and more than 10 hours in one day, close quote. The baker union rejoices and large, well-staffed above-ground bakeries are fine with it. But master bakers are not fans. What will these small business owners do when

they don't have extra hands during a holiday rush? Such is the case for upstate New York's Joseph Lochner. German immigrant Joseph Lochner is a master baker in Utica, New York. In 1901, a state inspector, possibly tipped off by the bakers' union, turns his eye toward this master baker's shop and finds the employee, Amon Schmitter, has, in fact, baked more than 60 hours in a given week. Worse still, this isn't Joseph Lochner's first offense. But he isn't going to take this lying down. With the support of the 60-hour cap-hating Master Bakers Association,

Joseph challenges the constitutionality of the law. His former baker-turned-lawyer, Henry Weissman, argues that the question of health is ridiculous. This is baking, not mining. Neither the public nor the baker is harmed if an employee logs more than 60 hours a week. Therefore, why pick on bakers? Why not other industries? Further, and this is key, so listen up, his lawyer calls the Bake Shop Act unconstitutional. The 14th Amendment guarantees that neither the federal nor a state government shall, quote, deprive any person of life, liberty, or property

without due process of law, close quote. And Team Lochner argues that with this law, the state of New York is totally stepping on the liberty of these bakers to make work contracts as they see fit. So what do the courts say? Joseph and his crew lose an appeal until, in 1905, Lochner v. New York ascends all the way to the Supreme Court. Here, by a 5-4 vote, the law is found unconstitutional. Joseph wins, and that 14th Amendment-based argument on contracts was crucial. To quote the majority opinion,

liberty of contract relating to labor includes both parties to it. The one has as much right to purchase as the other to sell labor. There's no reasonable ground on the score of health for interfering with the liberty of the person or the right of free contract by determining the hours of labor and the occupation of a baker. Now, I know. SCOTUS just dismissed the health concern. And you might be thinking, but those cellar bakeries are super unhealthy. If you're in that camp,

you and Justice John Marshall Harlan are in agreement. He dissents on that basis, arguing that among those classes where the state may appropriately intercede, which in this era consists of children, women, and hazardous occupations only, the dangers of baking do, in, and hazardous occupations only. The dangers of baking do, in fact, make it worth regulating.

But the really interesting dissent, the one that will echo through U.S. legal thought, comes from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. For this walrus mustachioed justice, the health hazards of baking isn't the question at hand. He holds that the majority's position imposes those judges' own laws of fair reading of the Constitution, which he finds inappropriate. He writes, quote, a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, close quote. To him, a duly passed state law should stand unless it is constitutionally prohibited. To quote once more, There's a term for Oliver Wendell Holmes' somewhat hands-off interpretation of the court's role.

Judicial restraint. It's an important idea, one that will later gain steam and have far-reaching impacts in the future. But right now, let's remember that his is a dissenting opinion. What we get more immediately is a name for the Supreme Court's early 20th century pension for shooting down state-level economic regulations, like forthcoming minimum wage laws. This is known as the Lochner era. Progressives are disappointed in the Lochner v. New York decision, but that doesn't mean the food-related battles are over. On the contrary, President Theodore Roosevelt himself

is preparing to wrestle with the food industry, even if it means going into the jungle. It's an unspecified day in the spring of 1906, and the young, sharp-as-a-whip duo, James B. Reynolds and Charles P. Neal, are walking up an uneven brick path of one of Chicago's many meatpacking plants. Company agents quickly greet them. No surprise, considering that James and Charles are here at the behest of the President of the United States. Teddy sent them to do an inspection, and this company wants to put its best foot forward. But stepping inside the plant, the two inspectors are taken aback at what they see. The wooden walls and floors are poorly maintained. They're worn from years of assorted meat droppings, the hacked-up phlegm of workers, and exposure to water. The wood is literally rotting. And while this isn't an underground New York City bake shop,

it too has terrible lighting and ventilation. Standing here in the hot, humid plant, breathing in the stench of rotting wood mixed with the smell of raw, less than clean meat, is frankly nauseating. James and Charles will later report, "'In a word, we saw meat shoveled from filthy wooden floors, piled on tables rarely washed,

pushed from room to room in rotten box carts, in all of which processes it was in the way of gathering dirt, splinters, floor filth, and the expectoration, or spit, of tuberculosis and other diseased workers. Whew. Okay, we'll continue this visit, but first, a bit of background.

As you know from episode 86, the miracle of the second industrial revolution's refrigerated train cars gave rise to a massive meat industry in Chicago. But as with New York bake shops, inquiring investigators began examining the industry's practices a couple years back. The most influential of these wasn't a reporter per se.

It was a young novelist and recent convert to socialism named Upton Sinclair, who proudly announced upon arriving in Chicago, I have come to write the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the labor movement. That's right. Just as Harriet Beecher Stowe used her Based on True Events novel to open the eyes of unaware Americans to the horrors of slavery, Upton came to the Windy City to write a fictional but based on true events account of the horrors of the meatpacking industry's labor practices. He relied on informants and even went undercover to get

inside and do his own research. Upton's work has captivated the nation, yet many Americans wonder, can they trust a socialist? Not only is Upton one, but he first published his meatpacking novel entitled The Jungle through serialized installments in the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason.

That said, the vivid, disgusting scenes of rats, human body parts, and excrement making their way through dirty meatpacking plants is just too much for Main Street USA to ignore. Americans now want to know just how the sausage gets made. So does the president. Teddy read The Jungle, which Upton and others sent to him, and this food for thought is making his tummy turn.

He's seen value in regulating food and drugs, and what's more, he believes such a progressive bill in Congress will have public support, which will also translate to support for the Republicans in this year's midterms. But TR can't rely on Upton Sinclair's sensational socialist cereal, which closes with a call for meatpacking employees to

organize, organize, organize, and elect local socialists so that, quote, Chicago will be ours. Chicago will be ours. Chicago will be ours. Close quote. For this plan to work, he needs to win over more conservative members of his party. Ah, so that's why Teddy has enlisted the help of young Charles and James today.

These two intelligent, trusted public servants will try to separate Upton's facts from fiction. So let's continue with their tour. Now, as James and Charles walk from one room to the next, it's worth noting, as historian James Harvey Young later will, that Chicago's meatpacking industry knew for weeks that these inspectors were coming. In other words, this is them putting their best foot forward. So James and Charles are horrified as they observe the

following scene. To quote them, an employee carted the chopped up meat across a room in a barrow, the handles of which were filthy with grease. The meat was then thrown out upon tables, and the employee climbed upon the table, handled the meat with unwashed hands, knelt with his dirty apron and trousers in contact with the meat. He repeated this process indefinitely. Close quote. Oh, and one more fun detail. This employee is preparing meat that will be eaten uncooked. So purifying heat won't be killing the germs. But perhaps the moment that bothers James and Charles the most happens by a bathroom, or privy to use their word,

that is uncomfortably close to workspaces. In fact, not just uncomfortably close, but lacking towels, soap, that sort of thing. With the smell of excrement in the air, James and Charles report, we saw a hog that had just been killed, cleaned, washed, and started on its way to the cooling room, fall from the sliding rail to a dirty wooden floor and slide partway into a filthy men's privy. It was picked up by two employees, placed upon a truck,

carried into the cooling room, and hung up with the other carcasses. No effort being made to clean it. With their stomachs in knots, James and Charles are thinking Upton got some things right. Something must be done. When Teddy submits Charles and James's reports to Congress, he urges immediate and drastic reform. A bill is already in the works, but he nonetheless writes to Congress on June 4th, 1906. The conditions shown by even this short inspection to exist in the Chicago stockyards are revolting. It is imperatively necessary in the interest of health and of decency that they

should be radically changed. The meatpacking industry's allies in Congress push back on James and Charles during congressional hearings. The duo more than hold their own though, and by the end of the month, Congress passes the Pure Food and Drug Act, as well as the Meat Inspection Act. The federal government is now empowered to inspect and regulate meatpacking houses, and we have the first version of the FDA. The jungle didn't help the cause of socialism, as Upton Sinclair had hoped. It did gross the nation out, though, or as Upton himself puts it, I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident, I hit it in the stomach. Yeah, that's well put. Neither the nation as a whole nor Teddy are radical enough for socialism,

yet Upton's investigating and sleuthing yielded a novel that profoundly impacted the United States, bringing federal regulation and oversight into the world of meatpacking. And as this federal law doesn't raise the same contracting questions as New York's Big Shop Act did, it will stand. A year later, James Reynolds

writes to Teddy about the much-improved conditions of this jungle. To use a TR-ism, the president is delighted. A big victory for TR and progressivism, but we can't rest here. We need to visit with another investigative reporter, one who's raising questions about John Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company. But is such a demigod of industry even touchable? We'll find out, even if our investigation means going back a quarter of a century to the earliest days of the American oil industry. One more time, rewind.

How can you be sure your child is making the right decision when choosing a university? Rewind. programs are strategically designed to prepare students for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. Growth is essential for every entrepreneur. At BDC, we get that. And the businesses we support grow at double the average rate. Accelerating the pace. We're on it. BDC. Financing. Advising. Know-how. It's February 25th, 1872. We're in the growing and prosperous western Pennsylvania town of Titusville. It was here, in August 1859, that a Mr. Edwin Drake, a.k.a. the Colonel, dug the first oil well that gave rise to the American oil industry. In the little more than a decade since then, Titusville has proudly helped to provide the American people with the grease that keeps new industrial machines moving and the kerosene that illuminates the night. And you know, why wouldn't the good people of Titusville be proud? that keeps new industrial machines moving and the kerosene that illuminates the night.

And you know, why wouldn't the good people of Titusville be proud? Just take in this town. Walking its streets, we're greeted by happy families coming and going from their beautiful homes. Children playing merrily or studying studiously in their new, finely built schoolhouse. Men riding beautiful, magnificent horses along immaculately kept roads as they go according the town's available ladies. There's even an opera house. Titusville is the

embodiment of what you and I might call the American dream. At least it was, until now. The following morning, February 26th, the oil men of Titusville open their newspapers and read, to their horror that the railroads are doubling rates on all independent oil outfits. The lone exception to this increase? Members of the newly formed South Improvement Company. They'll be exempted from the jacked up costs through rebates. More than that, they'll get paid in drawbacks from the fees incurred by non-participating independents. What? This isn't a fair market.

It's dishonest. Unjust. 3,000 of Titusville's proud oilmen quickly descend upon the opera house. With their grim expressions, they carry banners conveying their rage. Down with the conspirators, reads one. No compromise, declares another. Still more evoke classic lines of American courage and grit,

quoting those famous last words of the War of 1812's mortally wounded naval officer, James Lawrence. Don't give up the ship. Seated in the massive opera house, they listen as speaker after speaker denounces this evil plot. Men pledge not to sell out. They won't give up the ship. In the days to come, they and other nearby producers

form the Petroleum Producers Union. They petition their state legislators to revoke the South Improvement Company's charter. The group asks Congress for an interstate commerce bill, and they boycott by reducing their own output. But the oil men soon learn whose pockets are deeper, and it isn't theirs. Within a matter of weeks,

independents in the region cave to the pressures of the South Improvement Company. Many are doing so by selling to the Cleveland, Ohio-based Standard Oil Company. One unspecified night amid these gloomy weeks, a tall teenage girl with dark wavy hair, Ida Tarbell, takes note of the change that's come over her father, Frank. The proud oil man announces that he will not sell to the Standard Oil Company, to this Cleveland Ogre, as he calls its owner.

But the resolved man will never be the same. Never again will Ida hear her father laugh, joke, play his jaw harp, and sing. Instead, he'll stress, struggle, mortgage the family home to cover business expenses, and be heartbroken in the years to come when his business partner commits suicide. That grim tale of loss is how the young Titusville teenager I mentioned, Ida Tarbell, will later recall the 1872 consolidation of most Cleveland-area oil companies

by the Gilded Age industrial titan, John D. Rockefeller, or as her father describes him, that Cleveland ogre. Of course, John has a different take. Huh. Sounds like we have a little to unpack here. Let's start by recalling that we made John D's acquaintance back in episode 97. And here's a quick refresher. John's conman father and devout Baptist mother both contributed to him becoming a hardworking, money-focused, God-fearing youth.

Leaving New York for Ohio while still a teen, the rail-thin transplant started in bookkeeping, then threw himself into the region's burgeoning oil scene when that became a thing. Leaving New York for Ohio while still a teen, the rail-thin transplant started in bookkeeping, then threw himself into the region's burgeoning oil scene when that became a thing. He saw success with oil during the Civil War, incorporated Standard Oil in 1870, and then made a slew of acquisitions when the South Improvement Company, or SIC for short, came into existence earlier this year, 1872. Ah yes, the SIC. In brief, it consists of three railroads, the Pennsylvania, the New York Central, and the Erie, and a few select oil companies, including J.D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The idea, as stated above, is that the railroads

raise shipping rates on oil companies but take care of those few in the club, or frankly cartel, through rebates and drawbacks. Word of the SIC and its forthcoming plans leaked in February 1872, and as we witnessed in Ida's account, this terrified independent oilman. Now, the SIC's plan is soon foiled. Pennsylvania lawmakers hear their oil-producing constituents' lamentations and revoke the company's charter that April, but it's too late. J.D. has already bought out 22 of his 26 terrified Cleveland-area competitors, thereby securing more than 25% of the nation's refining capacity. Historians will eventually dub John's quick, massive acquisitions in these few weeks the Cleveland Massacre. But John doesn't see himself as an ogre

massacring independent oilmen. On the contrary, he views himself and Standard Oil as the region and industry's savior, keeping things profitable for all by preventing overproduction. Further, John pays handsomely for his buyouts, in cash if requested, though he encourages sellers to take payment in Standard Oil stock. If they do, John promises, your family will never know want. He welcomes talented former independents into the Standard Oil fold as employees, and as for accusations that he used the SIC to pressure independent oilmen to sell, he strongly denies this. The timing of it all makes it hard, if not impossible, to believe the SIC didn't factor in, but that's John's take, and those who sold to him are generally happy they did. By the end of the decade, JD's Standard Oil Empire controls 90% or more of the nation's oil

production and the majority of its distribution. Indeed, their families will never know want. This Gilded Age high point for John in Standard Oil is where we left him in episode 97. But now that we're in the progressive era, let's continue their tale, but with a new companion, Titusville's Miss Ida Tarbell. Standard Oil only keeps growing in the 1880s. But it's facing the same problem other second industrial revolution produced multi-state American companies are, the lack of a federal incorporation law. foreign to every other state, renders it necessary for persons doing business through corporate agency to organize corporations in some or many different states in which their business is located. Close quote. That does sound like a problem, but John's new and famously rotund lawyer, Samuel C.T. Dodd, has an idea. What if a single overarching group, we'll call it a trust, held most or all of the stock for these various individual state entities. That would keep the companies separate in the eyes of the states,

yet align their goals and interests on the whole. Whoa. Brilliant. On January 2nd, 1882, Sam Dodd's lawyering skills gives birth to the Standard Oil Trust Agreement. By the year's end, John Rockefeller and eight other, ahem, lesser, trustees are sitting in New York City running a trust that holds no property yet holds the stock to pull the strings on 40 technically separate companies. Damn. Other interstate companies quickly follow suit. Oh, no wonder this decade ends with the Sherman Antitrust Act. As the noted biographer of notable Americans Ron Chernow puts it in his book on JD, quote, so many companies duplicated the pattern over the years that one can say,

with pardonable exaggeration, that the 1882 trust agreement executed by Standard Oil led straight to the Sherman Antitrust Act eight years later. Close quote. Yet, as we know from the last episode, this law is more bark than bite. And even as Ohio's Attorney General comes after Standard Oil for violating its state charter with this nearly a decade-old trust system in 1890,

the company finds a newfound love for New Jersey, which recently decided holding companies are just fine. Thus, when Ohio's Supreme Court rules in 1892 that John's trust empire must go, Standard Oil simply incorporates anew in the Garden State. Check and mate, Ohio. Approaching the turn of the century, Standard Oil is a global behemoth with a multi-armed, octopus-like reach securely grasping the nation and the world. At least, that's how the famous Puck Magazine founder and political cartoonist, Udo Kepler, depicts it.

Though, John D. Rockefeller is mostly out of the picture by this point. The undeniably brilliant tycoon has experienced a nervous breakdown, and while he keeps the title of president, J.D.'s effectively retired and working hard at giving his wealth away. Sounds like John D. has both revolutionized the business world and become a praiseworthy philanthropist. But hold that thought. Ida Tarbell isn't so sure it's accurate. It's been more than a quarter century since Ida saw her father return to their Titusville home

a broken man that fateful night in 1872. He struggled on. She's accomplished much. Ida becomes a trailblazer by enrolling at nearby Allegheny College in 1876. This institution started accepting women during the Civil War, but they were still few and far between.

Ida absorbed every subject from the sciences to languages, served on the students' newspaper editorial staff, but then graduated as the only woman in the class of 1880. She spent two years teaching at Poland Union Seminary in Ohio, but found that wasn't her thing. Returning to Pennsylvania, the dark-haired 20-something college grad found work

at the middle-class-oriented educational magazine, The Chautauquan. Ida first edited and annotated, but in time, she began doing some of the writing. This gig held for several years, but after a fallout with editor Theodore Flood, the intrepid 34-year-old made a daring move in 1891. She decided to go full-on freelance writer, working from Paris, France.

Long fascinated with the French Revolution's leading women, Ida hoped to support herself with articles while writing a biography of her, at the time, heroine, the salon-running revolutionary intellectual, Madame Rolland. Talk about an enormous gamble. While Ida had the forethought to get some assurances of interest in her articles from American publications before moving to the other side of the Atlantic, the freelance life brings no guarantees.

And doing so as a woman, well, let's just say that, with few exceptions, everyone in her life told her she was nuts. Yet Ida went for it, and after six weeks in the City of Lights, she sold her first article for $6. Living hand-to-mouth, freelance writing Ida's reputation for excellent prose, analysis, and accuracy only grew. Then, in 1892, an energetic man with a bushy mustache showed up at her door, Sam McClure. Sam was starting a new magazine and wanted her to write for him.

It took some coaxing, but as anyone who knows him can tell you, Sam's a charmer. As the 1890s wore on, McClure's magazine published her carefully researched biographies on Emperor Napoleon, then Abraham Lincoln. As a result, the magazine's circulation almost doubled. But now, as the Spanish-American War is quickly won and the U.S. enters the 20th century, Sam McClure wants to apply his magazine's investigative journalism

to a pressing issue, corporate trusts. And as he considers the biographical nature of the mother of all trusts, Standard Oil, which is essentially the life story of John Rockefeller, who better to of the mother of all trusts, Standard Oil, which is essentially the life story of John Rockefeller, who better to make the story of this trust a readable, narrated history than his oil country originating biographical writer, Ida Tarbell? Well, Ida certainly has thoughts on Standard Oil. The 1872 Cleveland massacre left an indelible impression. Her father's still struggling.

She's game, though many others worry for her. Friends back in Titusville fear Standard Oil will make her pay if she does. Fearing Standard Oil will take down McClure's, her father Frank cautions, Don't do it, Ida. They will ruin the magazine. And as she begins her research in 1901, a banker beholden to Standard Oil likewise warns Ida at a Christmas party that the company is concerned. Still, Ida moves ahead, traveling the nation, scouring Standard Oil's seemingly endless court records and congressional reports, while her 27-year-old research assistant, John Siddall, does the same in Cleveland. Then, as Ida's first drafts are coming together, her boss, Sam McClure,

comes bearing news. Seems his friend, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, is friends with Standard Oil VP Henry Rogers. And if Ida wants, Mark Twain can arrange an interview. It's an unspecified day, early January 1902. Ida is just arriving at 26 East 57th Street in New York City. This is the home of Henry Rogers. Ida sits opposite of Henry. A tall, strong, handsome, mustachioed man, she can't but note how similar he is in appearance to his friend Mark Twain.

Still, should she be concerned? Are her friends and her father correct that Standard Oil will come for her? She steals herself against the thought as Henry asks, When and where did your interest in oil begin? Ida answers by referencing a town not far from Titusville, on the flats and hills of Rouseville. Of course, Tarbell's Tank Shops. I knew your father.

I could put my finger on the spot where those shops stood. That's right. Like her father, Frank, Henry Rogers was once a small-time, independent, western Pennsylvania oil man. The two strangers connect on their shared origins, recalling the details of homes and places from half a lifetime ago. Finally, Henry asks a more serious question.

What are you basing your story on? On documents. I am beginning with the South Improvement Company. Well, that, of course, was an outrageous business. That is where the Rockefellers made their big mistake. Ah, Henry would know. Though number three in the Standard Oil Company today, he fought the SIC as an independent oil man.

The curious investigator and powerful oil executive talked for another two hours. They'll converse several times again in the future, as Henry gladly provides Ida with a human face and answers that make sense of standard oil's moves. Makes it less of an ogre. Henry's great at public relations,

but these chats will come to a sharp end when Ida unearths some particularly damning documents. From the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the MinuteEarth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had. But once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve?

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beyond measure. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast, and every month I delve into the turbulent life and times of one of the greatest characters in history, and explore the world that shaped him in all its glory and tragedy. It's a story of great battles and campaigns, political intrigue, and massive social and economic change, but it's also a story about people, populated with remarkable characters. I hope you'll join me as I examine this fascinating era of history. Find The Age of Napoleon wherever you get your podcasts. The History of the Standard Oil Company by Ida M. Tarbell, author of The Life of Lincoln. Chapter 1, The Birth of an Industry. So opens the November 1902 edition of McClure's Magazine. A facsimile, portraits of leading men, historical photographs of oil derricks, So opens the November 1902 edition of McClure's magazine.

A facsimile, portraits of leading men, historical photographs of oil derricks and refineries, a map of northwestern Pennsylvania. These supplements, all products of fastidious research, leap off the pages. So does Ida's engaging narrative of pioneering intrepid oil men. But she leaves the reader with an ominous conclusion. Suddenly, at the very heyday of this confidence, a big hand reached out from nobody knew where to steal their conquest and throttle their future. The suddenness and the blackness

of the assault on their business stirred to the bottom their manhood and their sense of fair play, and the whole region arose in a revolt which is scarcely paralleled in the commercial history of the United States. Ida's writing has the nation enthralled. It's painful to have to wait a month for the next installment. But December comes, as does January 1903's, which also includes investigative journalist pieces on dishonest labor organizers and Minneapolis' shady mayor,

Albert Doc Ames. Filled with these three legit, seriously researched exposés, the January edition sells out within days. Meanwhile, Ida's history of the Standard Oil Company continues through the year and into the next. It's crucial to note that she doesn't just slam John D. Rockefeller as a villain, worse. She gives him credit where credit's due. As historian Doris K. Goodwin so succinctly puts it, quote, throughout her series, Tarbell acknowledges Standard Oil's legitimate greatness

and recognizes the extraordinary business acumen of John D. Rockefeller, close quote. By showing something of an even hand, a genuine striving for objectivity, Ida only adds strength and credibility to her damning critiques of the man and his Standard Oil company. But again, she isn't just flinging accusations. Using company memos, court cases, and other documents, Ida proves that Standard Oil forsook the free market by manipulating prices to drive out or swallow up competitors

long after the South Improvement Company's short existence. Standard Oil forsook the free market by manipulating prices to drive out or swallow up competitors long after the South Improvement Company's short existence. As the articles continue through 1903, a Standard Oil employee saves papers intended for the fire that prove the company has indeed relied on bribery and espionage to crush its competition. And this is where her friendship with Henry Rogers hits a rough point. Meeting the Standard Oil executive just after the publication of this tantalizing detail in McClure's February 1904 issue, Ida will later recall it as the only time she saw his face turn white with rage. He points angrily at a copy of the issue and demands,

Where did you get that stuff? Ida answers, Mr. Rogers, you can't for a moment think that I would tell you where I got it. You will recall my efforts to get from you anything more than a general denial that these practices of espionage so long complained of were untrue,

could be explained by legitimate competition. You know this bookkeeping record is true. In total, Ida's serialized History of the Standard Oil Company makes a 19-part run in McClure's magazine. In 1905, this history is published as a book. The work is so popular that Ida's boss, Sam McClure, pays her a supreme compliment. You are today the most famous woman in America. And he continues, half-joking, people universally speak of you with such a reverence that I'm getting sort of afraid of you. And what, at the end of the day, is the most popular woman

in America's conclusion about John D. Rockefeller's global oil empire? She asserts that it is a blackmailing, free market killing, railroad rebate receiving, monopolistic trust. And as such, Ida asks her readers, what are we going to do about it? We should recall that, as Ida's history of the Standard Oil Company first began in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt

was just flexing his trust-busting muscle. TR and his then Attorney General, Sleepy Phil Knox, had just started their case against J.P. Morgan's new railroad trust, Northern Securities, earlier that year. No surprise, then, that TR came to appreciate Ida's pulling back the curtain on the OG of massive, thought-to-be-corrupt corporations. And indeed, we know he did.

Teddy sent her a letter of hearty congratulations. So, between TR's administration winning the case against Northern Securities in 1904, and Ida's thorough work on Standard Oil, yes, a government investigation is definitely coming. But let's not put the cart before the horse. As always, we need the full picture, and not everyone loves Ida Tarbell's work. Rycroft Colony founder Albert Hubbard pushes back on Ida Tarbell's work. Rycroft Colony founder, Albert Hubbard, pushes back on Ida's take.

To quote him, Ida Tarbell is an honest, bitter, talented, prejudiced and disappointed woman who wrote from her own point of view. And that point of view is in the ditch where her father's wheelbarrow was landed by a standard oil tank wagon. Close quote.

Writing a century later, Charles R. Morris will provide a more analytical critique in his book, The Tycoons, concluding that Ida's gorgeous prose unfortunately conceals the holes in her argument. Morris doesn't defend John Rockefeller as having an unimpeachable character, but he concludes that, quote,

while there were skeletons aplenty in John Rockefeller's closet, he was not a brigand or embezzler or stock manipulator in the manner of the early Jay Gould. Many of the accusations against him are for violating standards as reformers wished them to be, not as they actually were, close quote. Meanwhile, Teddy Roosevelt himself offers a critique

not of Ida, but of the present world of reporting. As much as TR is a fan of fighting corruption, he concludes that not all, but some, relentless reporters actually harm what they seek to help, failing to understand that once a thing is aired, quiet negotiations are often more effective than continuing to assail the issue publicly. So, the bespectacled, mustachioed president decides to air his own grievances

about these over-the-top reporters while speaking at a Gridiron Club dinner on March 17, 1906. But this doesn't go as he intended. Word spreads, and the public takes him to mean not some reporters, but all reporters. Thus, a month later, he tries to set the record straight at a cornerstone ceremony. It's Saturday, April 14th, 1906. We're in Washington, D.C., just a stone's throw south of the U.S. Capitol building with a large group of important D.C. types. Supreme Court justices, senators, congressmen.

Yep, that's the crowd, and more. They've gathered to bear witness as the Masonic fraternity lays the cornerstone for a new congressional office building. It will be named after the current Speaker of the House, Illinois' Joseph Gurney Cannon, and hopefully it will relieve the now bursting-at-the-seams Capitol building so struggling to hold all the representatives this growing nation now has. But the crowd is quieting down now. The high-pitched president is ready to speak. He begins.

Over a century ago, Washington laid the cornerstone of the Capitol in what was then little more than a tract of wooded wilderness here beside the Potomac. We now find it necessary to provide by great additional buildings for the business of the government. As some newspapers will later complain, that's about as much as Teddy has to say about this new building. He now transitions to the topic he really wants to address, which is revisiting the concerns he voiced last month about some over-the-top reporters. And to do so, he's going to reference a 17th century classic. In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, you may recall the description of the man with the muckrake in his hand. The man who could look no way but downward with the muckrake in hand, who was offered a

celestial crown for his muckrake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor. Now it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and abasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with this muckrake. And there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily becomes not a help, but one of the most potent forces for evil.

Ah, this is how Teddy sees not all, but some investigative reporters. Rakers of muck, nothing but muck, who ultimately do evil. But he's careful to clarify that he's all in for exposing corruption. Reporters just need to know when to stop. Expose the crime and hunt down the criminal. But remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself.

Continuing to say little of the building whose construction the group is here to celebrate, Teddy then turns to the next topic he feels like discussing. Large, second industrial revolution created fortunes, says TR. It is important to this people to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes. As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes beyond a certain amount,

either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual. Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits. After adding much nuance to these ideas, Teddy eventually closes by mentioning the foundational stone of high individual character. And with that, the Masons lay the copper time capsule containing cornerstone. This speech makes a big splash.

Few note his comments on taxing wealth, and just as few care about TR's nuanced distinctions between, say, a yellow journalist like the now-Congressman William Randolph Hearst and hard-hitting investigative journalists, but almost everyone likes the muckrake. Muckraker? Muckraker? Muckraker. A new pejorative term for journalists has been born,

and the corporate world loves it. Newspapers that haven't taken to this style of investigative journalism gleefully label Ida Tarbell and other such reporters as muckrakers while announcing the end of their short-lived era. John Rockefeller is sure that's true. But that's not how it goes. Investigative journalists, or muckrakers, as the term sticks longer than its solely pejorative intention, won't fade in 1906. At Congress's behest, a son of the nation's second assassinated president, Commissioner James R. Garfield of the Bureau of

Corporations, investigates Standard Oil, and he's definitely reading muckraker Ida Tarbell's work. Garfield Jr.'s over 500-page report helps TR push the Interstate Commerce Commission's strengthening Hepburn bill and leads him to conclude that this oil empire's leaders are, quote, the biggest criminals in the country, close quote. The federal government brings suit that November. By summer of the following year, 1907, the federal government and half a dozen states have suits going against Standard Oil. Then, in 1910, well into William Howard Taft's presidency, the infamous New Jersey-based corporation goes before the Supreme Court. The following year, on May 15, 1911, SCOTUS upholds the lower court's decision that standard

oil must disband. There's a bit of irony in this ruling. First, the shattering of John Rockefeller's empire not only comes as international competition is ramping up from the Royal Dutch Shell Group and Anglo-Persian Oil Company, but the aging businessman just gets richer as the value of the fragmented company's shares soar. He and Andrew Carnegie now appear to be in a philanthropy contest. Second, the ruling isn't the resounding victory the most radical of reformers want. Relying on the rule of reason doctrine, the court doesn't endanger all combinations or trusts, just those that nebulously are, well, not reasonable. Justice John Marshall Harlan is not a fan of this subjective rationale,

and while he agrees with breaking up Standard Oil, he dissents over the court's use of it. And when his colleagues vote to break up the American Tobacco Company that very same day, he again dissents for the exact same reason. But all that said, it is the outcome less than radical progressives like Teddy wanted. Although he pursued 44 antitrust actions as president, Teddy made it rather clear he isn't anti-business or anti-wealth. Capital, labor, whatever and whoever, he just wants every American to get a square deal rather than deal with bullies. And to TR, Standard Oil was a bully.

A natural disaster. A failed New York state effort at food regulation. A successful federal effort at food regulation. The busting of another trust. Let's square this all up. Flying at 30,000 feet, this mosaic of American experiences under the T. Roosevelt administration

shows us a nation taking a halting step toward a more empowered federal government. San Francisco expected no federal aid, yet most supported Teddy as he extended federal regulation in a significant way to monitor meatpacking. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court seems unsure of its footing. We saw SCOTUS break up J. Pierpont Morgan's Northern Securities in the last episode,

then give Master Baker's the win in Lochner v. New York in today's episode, with both decisions coming in through a tepid 5-4 vote. And although the court showed more confidence in its breakup of Standard Oil and American Tobacco, the rule of reason rationale keeps things hazy and unclear. It seems the post-second industrial revolution in the United States and its institutions are lurching toward what they hope but aren't sure are the answers at the dawn of a new century. In keeping our eyes on the changes wrought by the second industrial revolution are key. This nation of 75 million that reaches from sea to shining sea and with overseas imperialism

beyond is trying to grapple with unprecedented in size global corporations and what that means for the average American and the Republic. The world has seen wealthy corporations, but never like this. So what does it mean for representative government? Whether you're team Ida Tarbell or team John Rockefeller, that question is at the core of her investigation. Related, progressives are also wondering if the second industrial revolution created personal fortunes

can threaten representative government and the individual liberty of others. Hence, Teddy ending his muckraker speech by floating the idea that immense wealth perhaps shouldn't be passed on. As he put it, quote, in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits, close quote. Okay, but what is a healthy limit? And no surprise at that qualifier. We know this blue-blooded New Yorker isn't a socialist.

We heard him in the last episode explain that he fears the evils of both, quote, law-defying wealth and dreadful radicalism. Close quote. But beyond that, how would this federal tax he's suggesting work anyway? I mean, back in 1895, the Supreme Court ruled a short-lived income tax unconstitutional. Well, according to Mark Twain,

TR is, to give you one last quote, ready to kick the Constitution into the backyard whenever it gets in the way, close quote. But maybe it isn't kick so much as amend. We've got a slew of amendments coming in the progressive era, as this generation of Americans under TR's leadership and beyond significantly re-evaluates how to best keep the republic. And we'll get to that story.

But first, we've got the last of the three C's of Teddy's square deal to explore. Conservationism. Next time, we're going camping and heading to the Grand Canyon. HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. You can join by clicking the link in the episode description. I gratitude to Kind Souls providing additional funding

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