The times-news., 1937-05-24
Call
Before
Noon
ROCKEFELLER'S BODY
WILL BE TAKEN NORTH
TONIGHT FOR RITES
Continued from page one)


blind. But here in Ormond Beach
he was "Neighbor John" and that
is why flags were at half-staff
throughout the town, and why the
Rev. Kerrison Juniper, pastor of
the Ormond Union church, offered
special prayers at the morning
service yesterday.
A little knot of sympathizers
gathered in the afternoon at the
gates of the Easements" the
! feudal estate that Rockefeller
maintained here amid exotic gar
dens where all types of flowers
! famed in the warm air.
They were the people who had
seen him almost every day: had
seen him smile and heard, too
many times to remember, the
greeting: Good day and God
bless you"
Rockefeller passed these people
on his daily drive down Daytona
'Beach-25 miles round trip-to
an inlet where he sat for an hour,
watching the fishermen and the
shrimp boats and lifting his eyes,
now and then, to the blue of the
sea beyond.
This had been his sole recrea-
tion and exercise since he gave
up his golf-a game which he
played as intensely as he once did
the larger game of big business.
Years ago Rockefeller retired
from business, weary of earning
money that rolled into his vaults
faster than he could spend it. He
had rivalled the Harrimans and
the Goulds in the railroad busi.
ness; he had bought into steel un-
til he threatened the primacy of
Andrew Carnegie; he had invested
in public utilities, real estate,
street RAILWAYS, ferries and ocean
lines. His trucks were on the
main streets of every cross-road
town in the United States: his oil
caravans plodded the Arabian des-
erts; his tankers fed oil to South
America; his oil barrels rolled into
doorways in China and along jun
gle trails in Africa.
And everything he touched
turned to gold.
So he turned away from the &C
emulation of money and began
to give it away. Finally, that, too,
became too arduouS 4 task-man-
agement of S750,000,000 in phi
lanthropies is a full time job for
hundreds of persons. So he passed
the work along to younger hands
and became what he was when he
died-a wrinkled old man in dark
glasses who gave away shiny dimes
and loved hymns and sentimental
poetry.
The name Rockefeller auto
matically called to mind the words
STANDARD Oil" and the story of
Standard Oil is the story of the
rise of giant industries in the
United States in the 18th CEN
tury. He built the first billion dol
lar fortune in an age when COM
petition was ruthless and piratical,
when the slogan was "rule or
ruin"
In the era of the muckrackers
he was often called "the most
hated man in America"
AS a retiring. diffident, old gen.
tleman who had relinquished his
scepter, he became celebrated as
a giver not only of shiny new
dimes, symbols of the thrift he
preached, but of $750,000,000 in
material gifts for the alienation
of suffering and the hetterment of
mankind.
He was attacked as few men
have been attacked, for avarice,
ruthlessneSs, and commercial bru-
tality. He made the benevolence
of the worlds greatest philan-
thropists shrink to insignifcance
when he became the worlds most
profligate giver.
Oil, gushing in abundance from
wells in various parts of the coun-
try, attracted Rockefeller's atten-
tion in the early 1860's. Samuel
Andrews, a young engineer, had
perfected a process for refining it.
The two men formed a partner
ship, financed with few thou
sand dollars. wrung by Rockefel-
Ter from his little business as a
commission merchant.
Five years later, the firm be-
came the Standard Oil company,
parent of the first American trust
"a strongly knit system of sub
salaries, affiliates, allies and
liege-companies, under almost feu-
dal control of Rockefeller, the
overload.
Expansion of industry created
an increased demand for fuel.
Rockefeller met the demand by
opening new fields, and command
ed control of the increased busi-
ness by two methods - crushing
opponents through slashing COM
petition in price, and through
building a secret system of rail
road rebates against which his an
tagonists could not compete eco
nomically.
1t was this system which
gave Standard Oil its world domi-