The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-05-26
By JOHN T. FLYNN

By JOHN T. FLYNN
 Copyright, 1897, NEA Service, Incl
 New York, May 26.-Perhaps the most interesting document about John D. Rockefeller to many people would be one bearing the title How To Make 8 Billion Dollars" Yet the simple truth is that such an account would not have to be a very voluminous treatise. Rockefeller's technique was simple.
 It was infinitely more simple than those complicated and be- wildering processes employed by most of the great fortune makers of today. Take, for instance, the Van Sweringen method, or the utility holding company. method as exemplifled in the Insult epi- sode. In these examples of money-getting the production of wealth is a secondary considera- ton. The whole plan consists in the clever manipulation of finan- cial devices to get control of al- ready existing wealth. This is why you find men like the Van Sweringens pushing into all kinds of activities-real estate, rail- roads, trolley lines, skyscrapers, department stores, hotels, utility companies, coal companies.
 Rockefeller's method could also be distinguished from that of the elder J. P. Morgan, whose forte lay not in the production of wealth or in the creation of wealth-produc- ing organisms, but in getting control of great reservoirs of money through banks, insurance companies, in re- organizing and combining existing wealth-producing agencies and, in the process, cutting himself in for a large share of the profits.
 It is important to perceive the difference in the source of the profits of man like Rockefeller and man like Morgan. In the case of Rockefeller the profit came from expending capital funds in producing oil, then sell ing the oil at a profit and getting his reward out of the profit on the sale of the oil. It was 8 null titude of little profits on billions of sales of oil that made Rocke- feller's wealth. In the case of Morgan, however, the approach was entirely. different. He did not create wealth and take 8 part of the wealth he created for him. self. He let other men create the wealth. Then he got control of their wealth-producing mechan- isms and made quick profits by capitalizing them or, better still, over-capitalizing them - and sell- ing the securities to the public.
 Rockefeller Emulated By Carnegie and Ford
 Rockefeller'S method of making money was like Carnegie's and Ford's. There was a difference be- tween each of the men, of course. But these three made their fortunes by interesting themselves primarily and singly in one great product oil, steel and automobiles. And all were apostles of the cult of mass production.
 However, there is great dif- ference in the problems which confronted Rockefeller and Ford. Rockefeller was an essential mo- nopolist. Ford is not. Rockefel- Ter attempted to organize against the disorderly forces of competi- tion in day when monopoly and mass production were hated by nation of little shop-keepers and little producers. He tried to force upon them the regulation of their industry. Ford has never gone in for this sort of thing.
 The automobile industry was essentially different from the oil industry. The kind of problems which arose was different. Ford has been 8 congenital individual ist. It would surprise many peo- pie to be told that this was not true of Rockefeller in the same way. Rockefeller went in for combination. He sought to bring his competitors in with him. It is not true that he merely swal- lowed them or crushed them.
 Rockefeller ransacked the oil industry for its ablest man and brought them in as his partners. Today we think of Henry H. Rog- CTS, Stephen Hardness, John D. Archbold, Charles Pratt, Henry B. Payne and a number of other great oil leaders as born Stand ard Oil men. But they were not. They were Rockefeller's bitterest rivals. John D. Archbold de- Roosevelt has considered, and to a belief that the Senate is entitled to more recognition. Everyone seems