Chapter 75

It was a persistent fog of suspicion and doubt and fear. From the start this fog hampered what was my first business, making sure of the documents in the case. I knew they existed. Almost continuously since its organization in 1870 the Standard Oil Company had been under investigation by the Congress of the United States and by the legislatures of various states in which it had operated, on the suspicion that it was receiving rebates from the railroads and was practicing methods in restraint of free trade. In 1872 …