Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/286

 signed to Western shippers, were frequently seized in New York by Eastern refiners. The need was held to justify the deed, like thieving in famine time. Fortunes were made in barrels, and dealers hearing of a big supply in Europe have been known to charter a vessel and go for them, and reap rich profits. In fact, a whole volume of commercial tragedy and comedy hangs around the oil barrel. Now it was to the barrel—the "holy blue barrel"—that Mr. Rockefeller gave early attention. He determined to make it himself. One of the earliest outside ventures of the Standard Oil Company in Cleveland was barrel works, and Mr. Rockefeller was soon getting for two and a half cents what his rivals paid four for, though he was by no means the only refiner who manufactured barrels in the early days—each factory aimed to add barrel works as soon as able. The amount the Standard Oil Company saved on this one item is evident when the extent of its business is considered. The year before the trust was formed (1881) they manufactured 4,500,000 barrels, an average of about 15,000 a day. Since that time the barrel has been gradually going out of the oil business, bulk transportation taking its place very largely. Nevertheless, in 1901 the Standard Oil Company manufactured about 3,000,000 new barrels. In the period since they began the manufacture of barrels their factories have introduced some small savings which in the aggregate amount to large sums. For instance, they have improved the lap of the hoop a small thing, but one which amounted in 1901 to something like $15,000. Some $50,000 a year was saved by a slight increase in the size of the tankage. The Standard claims that these economies are so small in themselves that it only pays to practise them where there is a large aggregate business.

More important than the barrel to-day, however, is the tin can—for it is in tin cans that all the enormous quantities of refined sent to tropical and Oriental countries must go to