WEALTH ACCUMULATION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 231, 12 September 1922, Page 2

WEALTH ACCUMULATION.

RICHEST MEN IN WORLD. Who is the richest man in the world? Mr. John D. Rockefeller, the American oil magnate, cannot have many rivals to the distinction, for, according to Mr. Henry H. Klein, the First Deputy Commissioner of Accounts of the City of New York, he is worth about 2,400,000,000d01. or. at the normal of exchange, £480,000.000, including his holdings in the “Foundations” and the wealth transferred to his family. “Foundations” are large amounts of money paid in trust for various public or philanthropic purposes. ’Phis information is given in Mr. Klein’s recently-published book, “Dynastic America ipul Those Who Own It.” It is a book of figures which makes the brain giddy. Tn it is given a list of 175 fortunes over £2,000,000 in value which have been left during the present generation. The first five are as follow :—Andrew Carnegie (highest amount owned), £60.000.000; Frederick Weyerhaeuser (estimated), £60.000.000; William Waldorf Astor (estimated). £40,000.000; Charles W. Harkness. £34,000.000; Oliver H. Payne. £30,000,000. According to Mr. Klein, there are more dynasties in the United States than existed in the Old World. “Their wealth-power is greater than all the king-power combined,” he says. “Theirs is the power of life and death over the whole human race. There is the dynasty of oil, of beef and the dynasty of coal, the dynasty of steel, and the dynastv of railroads, the dynasty of gas, electric light, and traction.' and the dynasty of ships. ths dvnastv of tobacco, the dynasty of rubber', the dynasty of sugar, the dynasty of telephone and telegraph, and the dynasties of a hundred other things in essential use by the people. Rockefeller is the Colossus th at bestrides the world. The Rothschilds m Eurone whose wealth is estimated at 2,000.000,000d01. (£400,000.000 approximately). and the Guggenheims. Du Ponts, Vanderbilts, and Astors, whose familv possessions approximate 500.OOO.OOOdoI. each (£100.000.000 approximately), are subordinate to Rockefeller” —