Page:The Rise And Progress Of The Standard Oil Company.djvu/7

 Preface the present. By the courtesy of the edi- tors and the publishers of the Quarterly, Journal of Economics these two articles, which together compose this book, are re- printed unchanged. The sources of this history are the re- ports of official investigating commissions and committees. Chief of these are the report of the “Hepburn” committee ap- pointed in 1879 by the Legislature of New York to investigate railway abuses^ the report submitted to Congress in 1888 by the committee appointed to investigate trusts, and the report of the Industrial Commission appointed by the President in 1898 and making its preliminary report on trusts in 1900. ' The oil business, in its early phase, was the reflex of prevalent railway methods. To attempt to judge the situation without first ascertaining the standards set by the railway management of the time is not merely unfair, it is subversive of all his- torical accuracy. The South Improve- iv