It has had faith in American oil and has brought together vast sums of money for the purpose of making it what it is, and for holding its market against the competition of Russia and all the countries which are producers of oil and competitors against American products.
THE INSURANCE PLANS Here is an example of one of the ways in which we achieved certain economies and gained real advantage.

Fires are always to be reckoned with in oil refining and storage, as we learned by dear experience, but in having our plants distributed all over the country the unit of risk and possible loss was minimized.

No one fire could ruin us, and we were able thus to establish a system of insuring ourselves.

Our reserve fund which provided for this insurance could not be wiped out all at once, as might be the case with a concern having its plants together or near each other.

Then we studied and perfected our organization to prevent fires, improving our appliances and plans year after year until the profit on this insurance feature became a very considerable item in the Standard earnings.
It can easily be seen that this saving in insurance, and minimizing the loss by fire affected the profits, not only in refining, but touched many other associated enterprises: the manufacture of by-products, the tanks and steamers, the pumping-stations, etc.
We devoted ourselves exclusively to the oil business and its products.
The company never went into outside ventures, but kept to the enormous task of perfecting its own organization.