The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-01-09
WAS 4 6RocER's BOY.
How Henry II. Rogers Started on
his KemarKa bic Career.
w LAwSON'S attack upon Henry II.
Rogers has brought that financler


/. Rogers has brought that financier
into the Iimelight. For years Rog-
ers has been the real master of the most
perfect and stupendous monopoly in his
tOry-the Standard Oil company. He is
today the most powerful active agent in
the money mills of the world and yet so
those of the mills themseIves-that few
are aware that II. n Rogers generates
the directing energy of the huge machine
of which he is the head and eyes. if not
the soul.
Probably no man of equal stature in the
financial arena has had more remark
able career than II H Rogers. Begin
ming as a newsboy in New Bedford and
risen. But only now and then has ne
appeared on the stage. His place has
been behind the scenes. But when ne has
chosen to court the limelight and make a
hit in monetary role other actors cast
with him have thrown aside their dummy
swords and run for their financial lives.
Yet thousands who have felt his hand
IN business competition pass him by on
the streets without recognizing in the tall.
broad-shouldered. athletic figure. with
eyes hidden under shaggy brows and with
from his seafaring ancestOrs-the author
of their discontinue He is the blue goat
cages.
At a public meeting in the Fairhaven
High school recently Mr.. Rogers exhibited
a lively interest in debate on the duty
of the teacher. the thinker and the citizen
TO his country a Young lawyer attacked
the combines and created conside Terra bic
emb9r .assment among those who sat near
the on king When the young man had
concluded there was general surprise and
apprehension when Mr.. Rogers arose and
said:
desire TO be. for every one of Us. if a val
liable idea strikes us. car have & patented
term OF years. We Will under such cir
cumstances. make all the money can
out of that idea.
; Is there ANYTHING evil in a combina-
ton of ideas backed by capital? worked
for five years in a union grocery store.
and by buying our stock of A union in
Boston we were enabled to sell below our
competitors. Could the Pennsylvania rail-
road carry on the immense amount OF
bination? OF course. combined energy and
ideas may be misiirected energy and
I. ideas. but there is no more misdirection
than IN the management of the individual
merchants and workingmen Of this coun-
trv-no. not so much"
continuing. MI. Rogers stated that he
was in his forty-fourth year In the oil
business and would like TO know what he
had done. statements of certain critics to
ing a question as 10 how he got his start
in business the newly discovered oil king
SAID he had worked as hard for what he
had rs any one of whom he had ever
heard or read. Gazing from the veranda
OF his FairhaVen mansion. this no less
strange than successful man. who in his
SiXtV-fourth year write his check for
S.2,Voo,yV9 and set the money at any bank
Dig enough TO honor the DaDer. can stfl
see the union grocery. store where he
worked and accumulated enough money
to detray his expenses to the Penusyl-
wanna oil fields
He was graduated at the age of 16 at the
Fairhaven High school. and then peddled
papers on the streets of New Bedford q :
a stepping stone to the grocery counter
and wagon which he drove for five years
at IS A week and his board Today A
number Of Fairhaven persons treasure re-
ceipted bills for bags of flour and other
staples which bear the signature of Henry
II. Rogers.
One of these receipts bears the date of
November, 1889, and il was shortly after
that date that Young Rogers burned his
bridges behind him and started on his
PssnInsylvs s t hazard Of 2eE fortunes ,D
drifted to the oil fields.
In those days the news of Fairhaven
village circulated around the stove and
cracker barrels in the Union grocery. and
( 1t was there that the future Standard oil
1 king first heard Of Kerosene oil Fair
/ haven residents had become Interested in
a small way IN the OIL wells. one Of them
/ was Bartholomew TabeT. who kept a
/ raint shop and who vas customer of
1 Charles Pratt. the New York OIL refiner.
! Pratt told Taber one day when the latter
was in New York that he was looking
! for young man To enter his business,
and would prefer New England boy.
Young Rogers had At that time gone 10
him to the New York refiner six weeks
later young Rogers entered the firm of
| Charles Pratt & Co. and embarked upon
romance Of riches When Mark Twain.
! the great American humoTist awohe one
failure Of a publishing house in which he
was interested. he found himself $50. 800
! in debt That Henry H Rogers came TO
/ his assistance and. violating previously
unbroRen rule of his career. acted his
! trustee and benefactOr. in recouping the
/ Twain losses is one OF his shining mouu-
ments. His gifts to HIS native town. in
Guiding a million-dollar church. have
been princely.
Besides being the big man in Standard
| Oil and the right hand of John d. Rookie
/ Teller. he is president of the Amaiga-
mated Copper cOmOany. Huntington & Big
Sandy railway. National Transit COM
pany. New York Transit company and
Ohio River Railroad company. He Is also
vice president of the Anaconda and Ar
cadian Copper companies. Atlantic Coast
Electric Railway company. ChesbrouCh
/ Manufa curing company. East River Gas
] company. New Amsterdam Gas company.
Federal Steel company. Interna tiOual
Navigation company. National Dry Docks
| COMPANY National Storage company. Ma
tiOnal Union bank. Staten Island Electric
company. Rapid Transit Ferry company.
and trustee Of the Atlantic Trust COM
pany--PhiladeIphia Record