Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr by Ron Chernow

Author:Ron Chernow
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Philanthropists, Business, Industrialists, Capitalists and financiers, Fiction, United States, Rich & Famous, Historical, Biography & Autobiography, Biography
ISBN: 9781400077304
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2004-02-15T06:45:20.650635+00:00

CHAPTER 21

The Enthusiast

When Rockefeller receded from the business world in the mid-1890s, the average American was earning less than ten dollars per week. Rockefeller’s average income—a stupefying $10 million per annum in those glory days before income taxes—defied public comprehension. Of more than $250 million in dividends distributed by Standard Oil between 1893 and 1901, over a quarter went straight into Rockefeller’s coffers. As Standard Oil shares took flight in the late 1890s, one periodical computed that Rockefeller’s wealth had appreciated by $55 million ($972 million today) in nine months. “Where in the history of the world did any man ever make $55,000,000 in 9 months?” the editorialist demanded.1 Rockefeller was becoming Mister Money Bags, a byword for wealth.

One might have thought Rockefeller would relax in retirement, but he was still a prisoner to the Protestant work ethic and attacked recreational interests with the same intensity that he had brought to business. “I have not had the experience of the majority of business men,” he later told William O. Inglis, “who find time hanging heavily on their hands.” 2 Yet his retirement was equally remarkable for its omissions. For instance, he lacked the wanderlust that infected other rich men, such as J. P. Morgan, in their later years. He never collected art or exploited his wealth to broaden his connections or cultivate fancy people. Aside from the occasional courtesy call from other moguls, he hobnobbed with the same family members, old friends, and Baptist clergy who had always formed his social circle. He showed no interest in old-money clubs, parties, or organizations. Commenting on this, Ida Tarbell branded Rockefeller a “social cripple” and detected an inferiority complex that made him afraid to venture beyond his home turf, but his behavior actually connoted mental health.3 When someone expressed surprise to Rockefeller that he had not gotten a big head, he replied, “Only fools get swelled up over money.”4 Comfortable with himself, he needed no outward validation of what he had accomplished. We can criticize him for lack of imagination, but not for weakness.

It is striking that Rockefeller, so grave in business, was extremely fond of games in retirement and indulged in a little skylarking. As his body aged, his mind grew younger and more buoyant. Having missed a carefree boyhood, he seemed to want to compensate in his later years and he suddenly showed a lot of his father’s jollity. In the 1890s, Cleveland was seized by a bicycle craze, and the “wheel season” was opened each spring by hundreds of colorful tandem bikes gliding down Euclid Avenue. Though in his fifties, Rockefeller joined the fad with boyish élan. A firm believer in appropriate dress, he bought, in assorted shades, sporty riding costumes of corded knickerbocker suits, alpine hats, and cloth leggings. Frederick Gates was at Forest Hill when Rockefeller learned to ride, and he watched Rockefeller teach himself to turn around without alighting. “He would start in with a wide circle,” Gates recalled, “and then follow it round and round each time narrowing the circuit until without dismounting he was almost circling the rear wheel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.