The Standard Oil Trust, depicted in the cartoon, influenced with technological advances because with its monopoly and new machines, Standard Oil Trust integrated vertically, designed its own oil barrels, the Company built pipelines and storages to keep the oil. This way, Standard Oil reduced prices and at the end, destroyed the competition. By 1882, Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust controlled almost 90 percent of the refining industry in America.
The cartoon depicting Standard Oil tank as an octopus represents the power and influence the Company had in the country, grabbing with its tentacles industries such as mining, steel, petroleum, and official buildings like the White House, and the Capitol.