Career of J. B. Rockefeller.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20248, 17 July 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

Career of J. B. Rockefeller.

Business Rapacity and Huge Benefactions.

(Manchester Guardian.)

Ml JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER who died last May from heart weakness, was one of the world’s richest men, had been in retirement for the past 26 years, and his death is expected to have no important effect on the financial markets. For a quarter of a century he had lived the life of a recluse on one or another of his three secluded estates, Ormond Beach, Florida; Lakewood, New Jersey; or Pocantico Hills, New York. Some years ago he had the quaint habit of presenting strangers with dimes, a silver coin of the value of about 5d., but this custom had been abanv doned lately. What the size of the Rockefeller fortune Is it is impossible to say accurately. It was estimated at £200,000,000 at the time of his retirement and has no doubt greatly increased since. His Benefactions are Estimated at £150,000,000. He had given huge sums to the University of Chicago and endowed the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York and the Rockefeller Foundation of New York. The purpose of the former was to spread throughout the world new medical techniques developed by the institute. Other benefactions in the fields of social research and philanthropy in many countries are almost endless. These have been administered and continued in recent years by his son, John D. Rockefeller, jun. In early life Rockefeller’s great achievement was the creation of the Standard Oil Company for refining and selling petrol. He was ruthless in his treatment of competitors, and several times fell foul of the law. Many practices he then employed have since been made illegal. On one occasion his company was fined nearly £6,000,000 because of its methods of competition. It is estimated that the total amount given by Mr Rockefeller to educational and philanthropic purposes exceeded £150,000,000. Nearly four-fifths of this went to the four great charitable corporations he created) —the Rockefeller Foundation, the General Education Board, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. They were free of all restrictions, the trustees having power to dispose of the principal as well as the income. The Rockefeller Foundation, under its-charter of 1913, was founded •To Promote the Well-being of Mankind” throughout the world.” Its chief activities have been (1) in co-operation with Governments in the control of hookworm disease, malaria, and yellow fever, and in the development of public health organisation, and (2) aid in developing medical, public health, and nursing education. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, founded in 1918 in memory of Mrs Rockefeller, was to foiward human welfare m all parts the world its grants were largely in the fields of child welfare and of the social sciences. In 111211 the Rockefeller Foundation and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial were . consolidated under the title of the former; K the combined value of the funds was then 203,21)8,503 dollars. Its work is now administered through an international health livision and through four directors, one each for the natural sciences, medical sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The General Education Board haa for its

object “the promotion of education within the United States of America without distinction of race, sex, or creed.” It aids especially universities and colleges, medical schools and Negro education. The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was founded in 1901 and has three departments —the laboratories in New York City, a hospital, and laboratories near Princeton, New Jersey. In 1928 the Spelman Fund of New York was incorporated for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes, with 10,000,000 dollars from the funds of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial at the time of its merger with the Rockefeller Foundation. Among specific educational institutions that in which Mr Rockefeller took most interest was the University of Chicago, to which he contributed from first to last approximately 35,000,000. Throughout his career, Mr Rockefeller was a Devoutly Religious Man according to his light. It would be grossly unfair to charge him with hypocrisy, for there is no reason to believe that he regarded his peculiar methods of business, causing though they did the ruin of a large number of innocent persons, as in the least inconsistent with the highest principle. He was an earnest member of the Baptist Church, and was for 30 years a Sunday school superintendent. In an article denouncing him and his money in the strongest terms as one of the greatest dangers threatening the Republic, the New York Journal once highly commended him for refraining in his private life from setting an evil example to his fellow-citizens. “The people at large,” said Mr Hearst’s paper, “owe much to the Christian religion because of the effect it has on Mr Rockefeller. His money except in one directly (namely, the political) is not a vicious force producing depravity. Study the careers of some of our very rich men, their stupid, vulgar, selfish extravagance, maddening to the poor, destructive of public morals, and contrast them with Rockefeller.” He was seldom seen in public, and almost the only “personal” facts commonly known about him are that he was bald, that he suffered terribly from indigestion, that he wore “a twodollar sack coat and the air of a tendollar clerk,” and that he played the violin with feeling and skill. In his later years he sought relief from his dyspepsia in the exercise of golf, although he had latteriy been too feeble to make much exertion. He gave no evidence of any interest in literature other than such as may be inferred from his writing in 1909 a volume of “Random Reminiscences of Men and Events.” His career might, perhaps, be instanced as an example of the advantage of longevity At 75 he was sometimes described as the most hated man in America, but by the time he was 90 the general attitude of hostility had Almost Entirely Disappeared. The change in popular sentiment has been attributed partly to the effect of his benefactions and partly to the realisation that his character could not be fairly judged except in relation to ethical standards of his time. He had the misfortune to typify the evils of monopoly at a moment when the public mind was beginning to be aware of them, and he thus became tlvi scapegoat for the offences of his trib*