Rockefeller understood that a pipeline’s weakness was not the steel. It was the men who lived along its path.
In the early days, teamsters who lost their work tried to break the lines with pickaxe.
The company brought in its own men, armed guards walked the lines.
They carried rifles and they were told to use them – This was a simple solution for a simple problem.
But the real protection was not the guards, it was control.
Rockefeller did not just own the pipe; he owned the wells, the refineries, the railroads–He bought the land to block a rival’s path.
He drove other men out of business with low prices until they had to sell–He built a world where his pipelines were the only pipelines that mattered.
There was no one left to fight, vandalism is the work of an enemy–Rockefeller’s true method was to leave himself with no enemies.