"STANDARD OIL" INVESTS "MADE DOLLARS" IN GAS
And now I shall have to go back a bit in my story. After "Standard Oil" had firmly established, through the agency of the curb,1 the value of the 1,000,000 shares of Standard Oil, the corporation seller of oil, at between $600,000,000 and $800,000,000, and had used it as collateral in securing control of the four classes of money institutions I have named—the national and savings-banks and trust and insurance companies—it proceeded to use the funds thus controlled to manipulate the stocks of great public corporations for its own profit, forming them into trusts with capitals far beyond their values, represented by new stocks and bonds, which it sold to the public at prices aggregating a hundred to five hundred per cent. over the old capitalization. It then engaged in a wonderfully clever campaign to work off on the people—directly, the very rich people, but indirectly, the people as a whole—through institutions which exist because of the people's savings—the $600,000,000 to $800,000,000 of Standard Oil stock which had at this stage served the principal use for which it had been created. It must be borne in mind that while "Standard Oil" is grinding out "made dollars," its owners never for an instant lose sight of that dim, distant day of reckoning when the people will awaken to their losses. The "Rogerses" and the "Rockefellers" know well that the public cannot always be kept in ignorance of the methods of the "System" by which it has been plundered, and that once it is in possession of the secret of how the savings of the many have become the property of the few, there may be reprisals of such a nature as will compel the "System" to yield up its gains. They know that when that day comes it will not be best for them to have