【SAT写作素材】人物经典事例：洛克菲勒

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John D.Rockefeller(1839—1937)

John Davidson Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York in 1839. He attended

the Cleveland Central High School and at 16 he became a clerk in a commission

house. Determined to work for himself, Rockefeller saved all the money he could

and in 1850 went into business with a young Englishman, Maurice Clark. The

company, Clark ; Rockefeller Produce and Commission, sold farm implements,

fertilizers and household goods.

Rockefeller's company was fairly successful but did not bring him the wealth

he desired. In 1862 Rockefeller heard that Samuel Andrews had developed a better

and cheaper way of refining crude petroleum. Rockefeller sold his original

business and invested it in a new company he set up with Andrews called Standard

Oil.

One of the business problems that Rockefeller encountered was the high cost

of transporting his oil to his Cleveland refineries (40 cents a barrel) and the

refined oil to New York ($2 a barrel).

Rockefeller negotiated an exclusive deal with the railway company where he

guaranteed sixty car-loads a day. In return the transport prices were reduced to

35 cents and $1.30. The cost of his oil was reduced and his sales increased

dramatically.

Within a year four of his thirty competitors were out of business. Eventually

Standard Oil monopolized oil refining in Cleveland. Rockefeller now bought out

Samuel Andrews for a million dollars and turned his attentions to controlling

the oil industry throughout the United States. His competitors were given the

choice of being swallowed up by Standard Oil or being crushed. By 1890

Rockefeller's had swollen into an immense monopoly which could fix its own

prices and terms of business because it had no competitors. In 1896 Rockefeller

was worth about $200 million.

In November 1902, Ira Tarbell, one of the leading muckraking journalists in

the United States, began a series of articles in McClure's Magazine on how

Rockefeller had achieved a monopoly in refining, transporting and marketing oil.

This material was eventually published as a book, History of the Standard Oil

Company (1904). Rockefeller responded to these attacks by describing Tarbell as

"Miss Tarbarrel".

President Theodore Roosevelt, who had been elected on a program that included

reducing the power of large corporations, attempted to use the Sherman

Anti-Trust Act to deal with Rockefeller's monopoly of the oil industry. This was

largely ineffective and it was not until 1911 that the Supreme Court dissolved

the Standard Oil monopoly.

The various press campaigns against Rockefeller had turned him into one of

America's most hated men. A devout Baptist, Rockefeller began giving his money

away. He set up the Rockefeller Foundation to "promote the well-being of

mankind". Over the next few years Rockefeller gave over $500 million in aid of

medical research, universities and Baptist churches. He was also a major

supplier of funds to organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League that was

involved in the campaign for prohibition. By the time that he died died on 23rd

My, 1937, John Davidson Rockefeller had become a popular national figure.