The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-01-12

E ENRY H. ROGERS, "the piston
 TON rod of the Standard oil engine''
 by hurling defiance at the state
 of Missouri in that commonwealth s
 custer suit against the great trust of
 which he is executive vice president, has
 served notice that any state may well
 mind it's own business in matters wherein the Standard oil and Henry H. Rogers
 are concerned. The net result of the in vestigation thus far Is the establishment
 of the fact that MT. Rogers knows much
 and proposes to tell nothing.
 Mir Rogers, calmly surveying Attorney
 General ,Hadley, selected by Governor
 Folk to conduct the investigation, let 1t
 be known by word and manner that he
 resented the action of the state of Mis-
 souri and considered impertinent the
 questioning of Attorney Hadley. Thus far
 Mir. Rogers combativeness, self-control
 and grim humor have given him the
 better of the argument
 It Is said that no lawyer-and some of
 the best direct and cross-examners in
 the country have tried their hands at it-eyer have been able to get Henry H.
 Rogers to tell on the witness stand any thing he did not want to tell or more
 than it served his purpose to tell. In the
 Boston "gas triaI' Rogers was the prin- cipal witness and was under fire by the
 shrewdest lawyers for more than i've hours, during which time he was not tripped once nor ruffled in the slightest
 degree. He told what he chose to tell and
 that only.
 This remarkable man. who juggles na- tional and state legislatures and makes
 and unmakes men of millions at touch,
 rose to the position in which he is sec
 ond to but one man-John D. Rockefeller
 in the American world of finance from
 the work of newsboy in the village of
 New Bedford. Mass. But there were mem
 bers of his family in the town of Fair haven. Conn, where he was born, who needed his help and he found a job as delivery boy in a grocery store at s3 8
 week and board He sent the s home and after five years of service became head clerk. To this day he recounts to his in- inmates his rise to a salary of s a week as the proudest achievement of his life. New Bedford at that time. for Henry IT. Rogers Is now nearly 70 years old, was the home port for fleets of American whalers and the sperm oil traffic was large, kerosene being unknown. Young Rogers knocked about the whalers and oil refineries with his eyes open and with an increasing appreciation of the commer- cial values of oil. Then came the dis covery of coal oil in Pennsylvania, an event that instantly took the life out of the sperm oil industry. Rogers joined the rush to the oil fields and found profit able employment. Here he began to give evidence of the genius for organization and executive ability that carried him to his present position where he may defy states with impunity. With astonishing grasp of the possibilities of the oil trade he proposed to the big operators one plan after another for the saving and market ing of the products of the wells, and many of these ideas were adopted.
 MT Rogers has not been known as one
 of the nations very rich men who have
 gone in for any special form of charity or phlanthropic work. His sentimental fond ness for the town of his birth. however, has been evidenced by his lavish expendi- ture of money for Fairhaven. Fifteen years ago he began to make Fairhaven famous by donating a school house cost ing $1Oo.OoO. Two years later his children, three daughters and son. built library