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62 When petroleum was first discovered in Pennsylvania the rivers carried it to waste. Rockefeller laid the foundation for the biggest fortune in the world by borrowing money to store oil when oil had no value but was running to waste.

But Rockefeller, seeking a new stomach to bear up the burden of his hundreds of millions, must trust to "experts" and to "expert" reports on Texas and Mexican oils. The result was that Texas oils were officially condemned by the Standard Oil people upon expert testimony and the oil gushing from Spindle Top sold below three cents a barrel, with few people having the Rockefeller courage to buy storage capacity for it.

The popular superstition is that the Standard Oil interest has sought to grab the oil wealth of Mexico. If any one, however, had outside keys to 26 Broadway, he could find therein three successive "expert" reports condemning the early samples of Mexican oil as fakes.

The Standard Oil chemists reported that the oil sent from Mexico could not be nature's compound; somebody was attempting to impose upon them by injecting gasolene and sulphur into worthless bitumen or asphalt, but they