ROCKEFELLERS' RICHES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 84, 6 October 1909, Page 10

ROCKEFELLERS' RICHES.

£200,000,000 IN 1919. Mr. Rockefeller, who had only £1000 in 1865, is to-day worth about £140,000,000. This computation is made by tho financial expert of the New York World, who declares further that the Standard Oil King, if ho lives until 1910, and attains his 80th birthday, of which there seems every chance, will bis worth £20,000,000. Personally, Mr. Rockefeller has always been vpry secretive regarding his fortune, says the World contributor^ but reliable

figures exist, and it is known, for example, that, Mr. Rockefeller's holdings in tho Standard Oil Company alono havo increased by £16,000,000 in the last two years. Standard Oil stock sold at 712 recently, the highest price- it ha 3 reached sinco tho panic of 1907. Liko a snowball rolling down-hill, Mr. Rockefeller's wealth is steadily growing and growing, and except by big donations ho poems powerless to check it. Some years ago the Oil King was quoted as saying that ha had not more than £60,000,000, but the 'latest approximately accurate estimates available place his fortune in 1905 at least at £110,000,000. Accepting' the ratio of increase between 1905 and 1909 as the basis of his estimate, tho World's expert asserts that Mr. Rockefeller will unquestionably bo a dollar billionaire in 1914, and the first in tho history of America. Since 1382, when the Standard Oil Company, which pays a dividend of 40 per cent. & year, was organised, it has paid to its stockholders £120,000,000 in dividends, and of this sum Mr. Rockefeller's share has been one quarter.