wonderful and complicated code of rules to
guide and control the thousands of lieutenants and privates who conduct
its affairs. This is partially true, partially false. "Standard Oil's"
governing rules are as rigid as the laws of the Medes and Persians, yet
so simple as to be easily understood by any one.

First, there is a fundamental law, from which no one--neither the great
nor the small--is exempt. In substance it is: "Every 'Standard Oil' man
must wear the 'Standard Oil' collar."

This collar is riveted on to each one as he is taken into "the band,"
and can only be removed with the head of the wearer.

Here is the code. The penalty for infringing the following rules is
instant "removal."

1. Keep your mouth closed, as silence is gold, and gold is
what we exist for.

2. Collect our debts to-day. Pay the other fellow's debts
to-morrow. To-day is always here, to-morrow may never come.

3. Conduct all our business so that the buyer and the seller
must come to us. Keep the seller waiting; the longer he
waits the less he'll take. Hurry the buyer, as his money
brings us interest.

4. Make all profitable bargains in the name of "Standard
Oil," chancy ones in the names of dummies. "Standard Oil"
never goes back on a bargain.

5. Never put "Standard Oil" trades in writing, as your
memory and the other fellow's forgetfulness will always be
re-enforced with our organization. Never forget our Legal
Department is paid by the year, and our land is full of
courts and judges.

6. As competition is the life of trade--our trade, and
monopoly the death of trade--our competitor's trade, employ
both judiciously.

7. Never enter into a "butting" contest with the Government.
Our Government is by the people and for the people, and we
are the people, and those people who are not us can be hired
by us.

8. Always do "right." Right makes might, might makes
dollars, dollars make right, and we have the dollars.

All business of the gigantic "Standard Oil" system is dealt with through
two great departments. Mr. Rogers is head of the executive, and William
Rockefeller the head of the financial department. All new schemes,
whether suggested by outsiders or initiated within the institution, go
to Mr. Rogers. Regardless of their nature or character, he first takes
them under advisement. If a scheme prove good