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A “Standard Oil” storage tank appears as an octopus with many tentacles. It is wrapped around the steel, copper, and shipping industries, as well as a state house and the U.S. Capitol, and one tentacle is reaching for the White House.
Comments and Context
The rapid growth of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Corporation was astonishing, especially since it commenced barely more than a generation before this 1904 cartoon by Keppler. Oil and its derivatives like kerosene and gasoline rapidly became staples and necessities of American life. At one time Rockefeller controlled more than 90 per cent of American oil extraction (until Standard Oil was ordered by the courts to break up into many entities). With adjustments, Rockefeller is still reckoned to have been the richest American in history.
Understandably — whether viewed from legitimate self-interest or greed — Standard Oil (in 1904 almost the sole constituent member of the “Oil Trust”) had interests beyond pumping oil in many areas of American life. Rockefeller owned or controlled virtually everything from magazines to politicians. Additionally, in the fashion of J. P. Morgan and other financiers, he had begun to organize his empire along “vertical” lines — owning everything from means of production to retail deliveries.