Source: this cartoon by udo j. keppler appeared in puck magazine on september 7, 1904. a standard oil storage tank is an octopus with tentacles wrapped around the steel, copper, and shipping industries, a state house, the u. s. capitol, and has one tentacle reaching for the white house. its caption reads, "next! " "next! " puck magazine, 1904. which two of the facts below might explain keppler’s depiction of standard oil? by the 1880s, standard oil had become the largest oil refiner in the country, controlling access to 90 percent of the refined oil in the us. in 1911, the supreme court ruled that standard oil had to be split into several smaller companies. throughout the year 1904, investigative journalist ida tarbell published her famous series of articles on standard oil, mostly critiquing the company's ruthless practices. by the early 1890s, there were more than 4,000 millionaires in america, and most of them claimed to be self-made men.