Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/301

 a great deal. They are very enterprising and smart men. I never came in contact with any class of men as smart and able as they are in their business. They would never have got into the position they now are without a great deal of ability—and one man would hardly have been able to do it; it is a combination of men."

It was not only that first-rate ability was demanded at the top; it was required throughout the organisation. The very day-labourers were picked men. It was the custom to offer a little better day wages for labourers than was current and then to choose from these the most promising specimens; those men were advanced as they showed ability. To-day the very errand boys at 26 Broadway are chosen for the promise of development they show, and if they do not develop they are discharged. No dead wood is taken into the concern unless it is through the supposed necessities of family or business relations, as probably occurs to a degree in every human organisation.

The efficiency of the working force of the Standard was greatly increased when the trust was formed by the opportunity given to the employees of taking stock. They were urged to do it, and where they had no savings money was lent them on easy terms by the company. The result is that a great number of the employees of the Standard Oil Company are owners of stock which they bought at eighty, and on which for several years they have received from thirty to forty-eight per cent. dividends. It is only natural that under such circumstances the company has always a remarkably loyal and interested working force.

Mr. Rockefeller's great creation has really been strong, then, in many admirable qualities. The force of the combination has been greater because of the business habits of the independent body which has opposed it. To the Standard's caution the Oil Regions opposed recklessness; to its economy, extrava-