When Ida Met HDL: Exposing the Godfather of Big Oil

When Ida Tarbell decided to take on John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, an earlier muckraker wasn’t impressed and told his contacts to avoid her — at first. Then he met her and changed his mind.

Preparing to review The Crash of Flight 3804, a new book by a colleague, Charlotte Dennett, on the deadly politics of oil, I recently discovered a intriguing connection between an earlier investigator of the same industry and another old friend. In 1900, Ida Tarbell was looking for a way to show how ownership of oil interests was moving toward control by a few. With a push from Ray Stannard Baker, she developed the outline for a series that would approach the business as an historical narrative and submitted it to the editor of McClure’s Magazine.

Tarbell began with an open mind, noting that she wasn’t certain that John D. Rockefeller had done anything illegal. But she remembered well the effect his company had on her own family. Her father Frank Tarbell had prospered in the oil business, that is, until his operation was crushed by monopoly power. Her hometown had risen in protest, and Ida was no longer on speaking terms with some old neighbors who sold out to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. 

She knew little about the company until then. Key documents had disappeared, those who sold out to Rockefeller at a profit wanted no trouble, and those who held out feared what he would do. Her father warned her not to write about it, predicting “they will ruin the magazine.”

Tarbell dismissed suggestions that Standard might kill or main her. But she knew they were already aware of her. One night, at a party given by Alexander Graham Bell, a vice-president of the Rockefeller-controlled National City Bank had beckoned her into a private room for a talk. Frank Vanderlip, a popular DC bachelor, then told her bluntly that his bank was concerned about her project. She was stunned by the implied threat, and also by the thought that she was being watched. But she replied boldly: “Well, I am sorry, but of course that makes no difference to me.” 

Henry Demarest Lloyd

Standard didn’t make an immediate move. But Henry Demarest Lloyd, great grandfather of my friend Robin Lloyd, was not impressed and said so. A decade earlier HDL had written an indictment of monopoly power, Wealth Against Commonwealth. Tarbell had read the book, but rejected Lloyd’s argument for socialism, which she considered idealistic but not practical. “As I saw it,” she recalled, “it was not capitalism but an open disregard of decent ethical business practices by capitalists which lay at the bottom of the story Mr. Lloyd told so dramatically.”

Lloyd’s theme was the negative power of wealth. To illustrate his viewpoint, he focussed on Rockefeller businesses and practices — but did not name John D. Tarbell wanted to go deeper and name names. She also wanted to ask Standard Oil to comment on what she found. When Lloyd heard about that, he warned independents that she had been hoodwinked by the oil company and advised key people to avoid her.

Tarbell couldn’t figure out why her old neighbors wouldn’t help. “It was a persistent fog of suspicion and doubt and fear,” she said. Nevertheless, she persisted and managed to prove that Rockefeller was the linchpin of an illegal ring — the South Improvement Company — that had transferred its tactics to Standard Oil. The arrangement gave Rockefeller’s group so much power that even other oilmen started calling it an octopus. 

Three initial articles were ready for print in 1902. The first opened with the discovery of oil, the second covered Standard’s formation, and the third chronicled an 1872 “oil war” in which independents defeated the South Improvement Company. 

One anecdote, first unearthed by Lloyd, focused on a woman who was defrauded by Rockefeller. Finding the story intriguing, Tarbell asked Lloyd for documentation about the widow Backus. Court records had been stolen, he explained. It took her several weeks to locate copies. At this point, the relationship between the two muckrakers became more like a tango. Each was dedicated to the subject and sensitive to the protocols of professional courtesy. Finally recognizing Tarbell as an effective critic, Lloyd realized he should meet the woman whom he had already attacked.

In September 1902, Tarbell visited HDL in Rhode Island. Lloyd was a charming, silver-haired man in his mid-50s. She outlined her series and he shared his research. Tarbell was impressed by the encounter, but Lloyd remained skeptical about her desire to create a “balanced” presentation. And despite their comfortable seaside location, he managed to make her feel guilty about her love for expensive things.

“I cannot tell you what a good time I had and what an impulse you gave me,” he wrote afterward. “With my radical leanings I sometimes grow very restive in my practical and rather conservative — though I think entirely sincere — surroundings. It does me good to run up against the people in the advance line where I believe most of us will be one day.”

In her series, Tarbell retold the widow’s story accurately, but with less passion than Lloyd had employed. Basically, a successful business woman had allowed herself to be frightened and failed to see the significance of contracts she had signed. It illustrated, thought Tarbell, how Rockefeller could terrorize and eliminate successful competitors.

Lloyd approved of her interpretation. “When you get through with ‘Johnnie’ I don’t think there will be very much left of him except something resembling one of his own grease spots,” he joked.

The Standard Oil series debuted in November 1902, just as a coal strike gripped the country. Pennsylvania’s National Guard were ordered to quell the riots, and mine operators refused a presidential request to resume work. The dispute was finally settled through arbitration.

A century later: disastrous effects continue

In the second installment, Tarbell named the original Standard partners. Worse for Rockefeller, the article revealed him as the force behind the South Improvement Company. As Tarbell’s father had explained to her, the federal government granted railroads subsidies and rights of way on the condition that railroads would act as public utilities — equal rates for all and no consideration for the volume of business. Rockefeller and others had abused these rules.

As the series continued, skeptics who had fought Standard Oil began to trust Tarbell. “I have been having a very interesting time here with the Standard work,” she wrote. “It is very interesting to note now, that the thing is well under way, and I have have not been kidnapped or sued for libel as some of my friends prophesied, people are willing to talk freely with me.”

One of her new fans was Lewis Emery. A hero among oilmen after he had frustrated Rockefeller’s control of railroads by building a pipeline, Emery had known Tarbell since her birth. He was one of the most successful independents, yet sometimes described himself as Rockefeller’s helpless victim. After reading Tarbell’s early installments, he wrote to Lloyd.

“I shared your misgivings relative to the motive prompting Miss Tarbell to write such a history,” Emery wrote. “I have been watching her articles closely and have expressed to her personally my doubts as to her sincerity in writing a truthful history of the acts of the men composing that company.” On the other hand, he also visited her in New York and they spent several hours discussing her work. 

After reviewing her future plans Emery changed his mind and decided to help. “I shall assist her as best I know how to prepare certain articles on the independent movement,” he informed Lloyd. He also asked for the return of refinery photos he wanted to share with Tarbell.

Lloyd still had reservations. Tarbell had won his confidence, but not McClure. An ad for the series was too even-handed, he thought, and he was concerned that the publication might yet come out on the company’s side. He forwarded the photos along with a worried letter. 

“I have not the least doubt as to the honesty and good intentions of Miss Tarbell,” Emery replied, “but you have opened my eyes to a certain extent relative to the publishers and the whole milk in the coconut.” He asked for permission to forward Lloyd’s letter to Tarbell. HDL agreed, as long as there was no wording that implied criticism of her.

LLoyd did not live to see completion of The History of the Standard Oil Company. He died suddenly six months after this correspondence, while leading a Chicago campaign for municipal ownership of street railways. With other journalists like Lincoln Steffens, Tarbell went on to spearhead a surge of investigations and joined the larger stream that came to be known as the progressive movement.