The news & observer., 1905-10-13
ROCKEFELLER. THE HUMAN
SPONGE.


unconscious humour of perfect seri-
BUSINESS. A good thing said of a man
by himself. with no idea of it's value
as bon mot has a deliciousness all its
own, flavor that is unmixed with
malice however it may gain in spice
were the words of that pious fraud,
John d. Rockefeller, when, addressing
his Sunday school at Cleveland, Ohio,
he compared himself to a sponge and
expressed a desire to be a pump also.
Lest injustice be done to a man
need of fair play in speech as it has
put him beyond the necessity of ma
terial defense, here is exactly what
Mr.. Rockefeller said on the occasion
referred to:
Il feel like a sponge, because 1
have absorbed so many blessings dur
ing my stay in the city, but l remind
you that We should be like the pump,
which not only sucks up. but gives
out
This was a variant on the usual
Rockefeller custom of pious phrases
carefully prepared beforehand and Of
a sort which, coming from himself,
make a blasphemy which is apt to
touch even the most irreverent of sim
ners There is a quality about relig-
ion and church exercises which COM
pels even the veriest scoffer to keep
silence discretely in the presence of
their manifestation. Rockefeller,
thing of cold acquisitiveness, exhibits
in his sincere lack of sensitiveness on
such occasions, the inhumanity which
has made his pre-eminence in his line.
man with blood on his hands does
not easily assume church leadership
or the role of spiritual example.
Rockefeller, however, with more than
the taint of blood about his life, with
the record of crushed hopes coined
into dollars, of misery made into gold,
of wrecked fortunes wrung from
warmer hearted and more trusting
men to fill his coffers of stealth and
deceit and perjury and the science OF
living lie as the mile posts OF ms
career, comes into places of worship
with Biblical phrase pat upon his oily
tongue-and comes honestly! Rookie
feller is above blasphemy and dead to
irreyerence not understanding either
religion or honor. Spiritual life is to
him a dream which is outside of bus
mess methods. God is a thing to be
palliated by gifts to churches of money
for which his creatures have produced
in pain. Yet-within the narrow con-
fines of his limitations, as narrow as
his greed is great-does Rockefeller
worship his God. That his attitude is
that of patting the Deity on the head
or tossing a penny to a beggar on
the street. is not consciously Rookie
feller's fault So is the man made
differently from all the other crea-
lures upon Earth that it is not re-
markable that he should have made
for himself monopoly of religion.
1t is merely another proof of the au-
dacity which has followed upon his
years of plunder and the power that
it brought. Different people different
ly idealize the God-head; there is but
one Rockefeller the world over.
But, standing before his Sunday
school in the Euclid Avenue Baptist
got himself and spoke in the similes
which have had to do with ms lie.
II feel like a sponge" said he. 1t is
Interestingly surprising-to know
that the distension has become self
conscious. We had thought that he
would die in his own desires a poor
man. Sponge! Well, rather. He has
rivers of gold, streams of life freighted
with the unconsidered hopes and am
bitions and toll of his fellow millions
of citizens And he has absored it all,
| left dry the places on which he drew,
gathered it all into his NAV and held
his great body dripping and yet avid
| for more! A sponge. The bitterest
man of satire could not have more
aptly designated the hard old man
whose wig over his billiard ball head
! lends him a vicarious kindness, than
| he himself. in Sunday school, told in
| in right living! Not only am /
sponge, says he, but l would be
pump also, a thing that gives out as
we'll as absorbs. Yes. he is a pump,
likewise, this Rockefeller. The sponge
is too inactive an absorbent for his
needs. A sponge merely accumulates
more than its share of moisture. 1t
is simply made by nature to keep the
water that it gets. Rockefeller, the
pump, has not been so content. He
has sunk his shafts and sucked the
very country dry. He has given out
his water and sucked it back with
interest He is a hydraulic of an
unlimited capacity, thing that can
get returns from places however arid,
however poor, however parchinS for
| the right to put their roots in moist
ground. Where the Rockefeller pump
| has been at work the returns flow all
one way. The great pipes draw and
draw and suck and suck and the land