Very 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 TARBELLa little sounder for those who come after. Nobody begins or ends anything. Each person is a link, weak or strong, in an endless chain.
More Ida Tarbell Quotes
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The methods it employs with such acumen, persistency, and secrecy are employed by all sorts of business men, from corner grocers up to bankers. If exposed, they are excused on the ground that this is business.
IDA TARBELL -
My final comment is that I still believe this man [John D. Rockefeller] is corrupt and he used unfair ways to become wealthy, all he cared about was his money and wasn’t considered.
IDA TARBELL -
If enough oil was held, or if the production fell off, up went the price, only to be knocked down by the throwing of great quantities of stocks on the market.
IDA TARBELL -
Now, 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 TARBELL -
I decided to write the book to open the eyes of the people of how corrupt John D. Rockefeller company was and the unfair ways he used to be successful.
IDA TARBELL -
A more immediate wrong is the way the movement for a fuller, freer life for all human beings is hampered.
IDA TARBELL -
[John D. Rockefeller] didn’t care about anyone he did anything just to be rich and be the only company standing without any competition. He destroyed anyone else.
IDA TARBELL -
It is but another of the proofs which are heaping up in American industry to-day that whatever is good for men and women – contributes to their health, happiness, development – is good for business.
IDA TARBELL -
Yet Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice, and it is doubtful if there has ever been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair.
IDA TARBELL -
I wanted the people to know the truth about the Standard Oil Company.
IDA TARBELL -
Buy cheap and sell high is a rule of business, and when you control enough money and enough banks you can always manage that a stock you want shall be temporarily cheap.
IDA TARBELL -
Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives, gold and land, defended ideas, imposed religions.
IDA TARBELL -
The only reason I am glad I am a woman is because I will not have to marry one.
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Such fluctuations were the natural element of the speculator, and he came early, buying in quantities and holding in storage tanks for higher prices.
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When 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 TARBELL -
One of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical.
IDA TARBELL -
In walking through the world there is a choice for a man to make.
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As a consequence business success is sanctified, and, practically, any methods which achieve it are justified by a larger and larger class.
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An excuse which, if carried to its legitimate conclusion, would leave our business men weeping on one another’s shoulders over human frailty, while they picked one another’s pockets.
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 TARBELL -
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.
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We 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 TARBELL -
There is no gaming table in the world where loaded dice are tolerated, no athletic field where men must not start fair.
IDA TARBELL -
There is no more effective medicine to apply to feverish public sentiments than figures.
IDA TARBELL -
Canonise ‘business success,’ and men who made a success like that of the Standard Oil Trust become national heroes!
IDA TARBELL -
I have never seen fundamental improvements imposed from the top by ordinances and laws.
IDA TARBELL