The whole force of the respectable circles to which I belonged, that respectable circle which knew as I did not the value of security won, the slender chance of replacing it if lost or abandoned, was against me.
IDA TARBELLThe whole force of the respectable circles to which I belonged, that respectable circle which knew as I did not the value of security won, the slender chance of replacing it if lost or abandoned, was against me.
IDA TARBELLThere is no man more dangerous, in a position of power, than he who refuses to accept as a working truth the idea that all a man does should make for rightness and soundness, that even the fixing of a tariff rate must be moral.
IDA TARBELLYou cannot settle a new country without suffering, exposure, and danger.
IDA TARBELLVery often people who admit the facts, who are willing to see that Mr. Rockefeller has employed force and fraud to secure his ends, justify him by declaring, ‘It’s business.’ That is, ‘it’s business’ has come to be a legitimate excuse for hard dealing, sly tricks, special privileges.
IDA TARBELL[On dishonest business methods:] … frequently the defender of the practice falls back on the Christian doctrine of charity, and points out that we are erring mortals and must allow for each other’s weaknesses!.
IDA TARBELLWe have held that a death toll was a necessary part of every human achievement, whether sport, war or industry. A moment’s rage over the horror of it, and we have sunk into indifference.
IDA TARBELLWhen the business man who fights to secure special privileges, to crowd his competitor off the track by other than fair competitive methods, receives the same summary disdainful ostracism by his fellows that the doctor or lawyer who is ‘unprofessional,.
IDA TARBELLThey fought their way to control by rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail, espionage and price cutting, by ruthless efficiency of organization.
IDA TARBELLImagination is the only key to the future. Without it none exists – with it all things are possible.
IDA TARBELLOne of the permanent possessions of the human heart is the memory of its noble enthusiasms.
IDA TARBELLThe inference is that the men alone render useful service. But neither man nor woman eats these things until the woman has prepared it.
IDA TARBELLHow defeated and restless the child that is not doing something in which it sees a purpose, a meaning! It is by its self-directed activity that the child, as years pass, finds its work, the thing it wants to do and for which it finally is willing to deny itself pleasure, ease, even sleep and comfort.
IDA TARBELLHe can choose the fair and open path, the path which sound ethics, sound democracy, and the common law prescribe, or choose the secret way by which he can get the better of his fellow man.
IDA TARBELLRipe old age, cheerful, useful, and understanding, is one of the finest influences in the world.
IDA TARBELLNow, if the Standard Oil Company were the only concern in the country guilty of the practices which have given it monopolistic power this story never would have been written.
IDA TARBELLOne of our gravest mistakes is persuading ourselves that nobody has passed this way before.
IDA TARBELL