3/01/12 JOHN D ROCKEFELLER, STANDARD OIL, AND THE GENIUS OF AMERICA

GETTIN' KINDA DEEP, BOSS

BUT WINTER IS FUN FOR DOGS...

...AND KIDS

A COLORADO SPRUCE FEELING RIGHT AT HOME

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  31 degrees, wind N, calm to light at present.      It is overcast but the barometer predicts sunshine.  We got a few more inches of snow last night, which would bring the total to about 9”.  It is very slippery, the snow slick as can be.  Friend and local writer Howard fell and broke his ankle on last Monday, and another neighbor fell a number of times yesterday.  I have gone down a couple of times but luckily not on the same hip I hurt two weeks ago which is just now getting better. Kids and dogs fare far better.
        Yesterday was a true “snowed in” day.  I cleared snow until it became futile and then I just watched it pile up, wondering all the while how I was going to dig us out, but I needn’t have been concerned, because Coastguardsman and former neighbor Zach showed up with a snow blower  about 3:30 P.M. claiming he was bored, it was too stormy to go ice fishing, and he was out doing good turns.  Which will be deserving of another one day.  When I was younger I found it almost impossible to accept such a favor; but  age begets wisdom, or at least the willingness to accept some help when proffered.
        Being house bound by yesterday’s blizzard afforded me the opportunity to read a little book that has sat unopened on my bookshelf for the last twenty-five years.  Its title is “Random Reminiscences Of Men And Events,” and the author is John D. Rockefeller Sr.(1837-1938), the founder of the Standard Oil Company, and the Rockefeller Family, its fortune and its charities.  Published by Sleepy Hollow Press and the Rockefeller Archive Center in 1984, it was originally a series of magazine articles by JDR, and chronicles the beginnings of the Standard Oil Company and the modern corporation in America; his personal and business philosophies; and finally his charitable activities and their organization. I doubt it is still in print, and the only reason I possess it is that it is an incidental artifact of my long career in gardens and museums.
        John D. Rockefeller was a genius of organization and efficiency, and possessed the personal traits of hard work and faith in God, country and his fellow man that allowed him to concentrate on a great goal and reach it.  He was very much a futurist, who could see trends and needs in society far ahead of others, and could convince others to join with him in ventures into the unknown. The later, of course, is what the modern corporation is; a combination of like minded individuals pursuing a common goal through mutual investments of hard work and money. 
        Corporations, and combinations of corporations, of course can be a powerful force for ill as well as for good, depending upon the persons involved and their motives.  But the unfortunate tendency of our society is to see evil in all greatness of men and their constructs, which often restricts not only the bad but also the good in both.  JDR’s personal principles and philosophy founded not only a business dynasty but a parallel one of charitable institutions, organized on the same principles as his businesses.  Hospitals, colleges, universities, and research institutions blossomed through his genius and generosity, and his family dynasty has carried on those charitable interests for well over a century. He and his family have been at once revered and often unjustly vilified.
        As for the Standard Oil Corporation, it of course still exists, although it has been repeatedly broken up into its constituent components through anti-trust legislation over the years.  Judge it how you will, it established the major principles of the oil industry (funding, exploration, refining, distribution and marketing) that still, for better or worse, exist today.  And virtually every other modern corporation, and much of modern American life itself, is its mirror image.
         Corporations, like every other aspect of the human experience, need reasonable legal oversight.  But to the extent that genius controlled is genius denied, it behooves us to be very careful with our social engineering.