even as the public became aware that much of the barons’ wealth had resulted from government initiatives. For example, in the 1860s and early ’70s, $100 million in U.S. bonds and loans and 100 million acres of U.S. land were given to the railroads. Ida M. Tarbell’s meticulous investigation into the Standard Oil Company revealed “that rebates, rather than righteousness, provided the foundation for the Rockefeller fortune.”
