The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I

by Douglas Brunt

With a more concerned tone, he noted the unhealthy canned foods that were commonplace fare for most Americans and blamed this on the culture of mass production and the monopolists. He felt that powerful financiers could vertically integrate industries to control markets, then hold the American consumers prisoner to a limited choice of products. Feeling subjected to the will of monopolistic forces he wrote, “Terrible hotels in Yellowstone, for days on end only canned food, ruthless exploitation by the food manufacturers who have founded the hotel corporations. Morgan’s [J.P. Morgan] prunes are in every Yellowstone hotel just because Morgan [as a shareholder of the hotels] bought a whole shipload of prunes. Those canned foods he could not sell the year before are now being delivered to the hotels.”I Morgan’s business practice was objectionable on its own, but the taste and health concerns were equally concerning. “Half of America lives off canned goods!” wrote Diesel, adding, “It truly

Interesting… same government, different year. :( when do we wake up and stop supporting these billionaires?

is a poisoning of the people by the monopolists… even the French fries are sold in ready-made cartons.” Embedded in each town was “a more or less well stocked hardware store” and Diesel surmised the shop owner to be “the future millionaire of the town.” He observed many “primitive shops” in these smaller towns that “sell a bit of everything as it becomes available.” He was amused at the American penchant for artifacts of the Old World, noting that some of these primitive shops sold “very old shelf huggers [something put aside, abandoned] of other countries, especially Germany, sometimes for enormous prices.”