John D. Rockefeller, A Character Study Part I, by Ida M. Tarbell<click<link<here
Me and the Moon, 1937, Arthur G. Dove<click<link<here
.. measured by our national ambition ...
.. the most successful man in the world — the man who has got the most of what men most want. How did he get it, the eager youth asks, and asking, strives to imitate him as nearly as ability and patience permit. Thus he has become an inspirer of American ideals, and his methods have been crystallized into a great national commercial code .. that is ..
John D. Rockefeller exercises a powerful control over the very sources of American intellectual and religious inspiration .. Now a man who possesses this kind of influence cannot be allowed to live in the dark .. The public not only has the right to know what sort of a man he is; it is the duty of the public to know...
.. How else can the public discharge the most solemn obligation it owes to itself and to the future, to keep the springs of its higher life clean? ...." continue~ after Arthur G. Dove's Red Sun
Ida Minerva Tarbell, Journalist, writer, social reformer. Born on November 5, 1857, in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Known largely for her articles against big business, Ida Tarbell excelled as a journalist at a time when few women were in this field. She graduated from Allegheny College in 1880—the only woman in her class. After spending a short time teaching, Tarbell joined the staff of The Chautauquan, a monthly magazine, in 1883.
From 1891 to 1894, Ida Tarbell studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and worked as a freelance writer. Joining McClure's, a popular magazine, as an editor in 1894, she started out by writing biographies. Tarbell later began her best-known project—an examination of the Standard Oil Company. She was familiar with the oil business; her father had been an oilman. Showing great determination, Tarbell dug into the Rockefellers' family oil monopoly and uncovered their unfair business practices. Her discoveries were first published in the magazine and later were published as the book The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904). Her work contributed to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to break up the Standard Oil monopoly in 1911. She died January 6, 1944.
Red Sun, 1934, Arthur G. Dove<click<link<here
Who then is this John D. Rockefeller? Whence did he come? By what qualities did he grow to such power? Has he proved his right to the power? Does he give to the public whence he has drawn his wealth a just return in ideas, in patriotism, in devotion to social betterment, in generous living, in inspiring personal character? Has John D. Rockefeller made good? From time immemorial men who have risen to power have had to face this question. Kings, tyrants, chieftains, since the world began have stood or have fallen as they have convinced the public that they were giving or not giving a just return for the power allowed them. The time is here when Mr. Rockefeller must face the verdict of the public by which he lives.
As to Mr. Rockefeller's origin it is typically American. He sprang from one of those migrating families which, coming to this country in the seventeenth century, has moved westward with each generation seeking a betterment of condition. He and his brothers were the first great product of a restless family searching a firm footing on new soil. The first word heard of the Rockefeller family in Richford, Tioga County, New York, where John D. Rockefeller was born, was in the early 1830's when his grandfather, Godfrey Rockefeller, moved to that community from Mud Creek, Massachusetts. There are still alive in Tioga County many men and women who remember Godfrey Rockefeller. It is not a pleasant description they give of him — a shiftless tippler, stunted in stature and mean in spirit, but held to a certain decency by a wife of such strong intellect and determined character that she impressed herself unforgettably on the community.
Godfrey Rockefeller had not been long in Richford when he was followed by his eldest son — William A. Rockefeller — a man of twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. There seem to have been other Rockefellers, for the family was sufficiently numerous and conspicuous to cause the farm in West Hill near Richford, where they settled, to be dubbed "Rockefeller settlement" —
a name it still bears - continue - Ida Minerva Tarbell<click<link<here
Reminiscence, 1937, Arthur G. Dove<click<link<hereARTHUR GARFIELD DOVE<click<link<here
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