The Rockefellers (Full)

[Music] they feared the temptations of the world yet a visitor once described their estate as the kind of place God would have built if only he'd had the money they'd amassed a fortune that outraged a democratic nation then gave it away reshaping America they were the closest thing the country had to a royal family but the Rockefellers shunned the public eye retreating behind the walls of their palatial home at Pocantico New York my own personal experience as a child is of a place that on the one hand was something of an Eden was serene and beautiful as we grew up a number of us began to experience mechanical also as something of a prison that cut us off from the larger world [Music] the family found themselves haunted by the controversy surrounding john d rockefeller king of Standard Oil vilified as a ruthless predator as evil incarnate he had created an industrial empire and a personal fortune on a scale the world had never known [Music] the great drama for the Rockefellers is to deal with the wealth to deal with it is a physical fact to deal with this this fortune has growing day by day and way they can't but also they have to deal with the fact of this money as a moral fact how you control it how you control yourself in the drama of the Rockefellers John Dee jr. was cast in an almost impossible role here is the sign of those controversial businessman in America who had to figure out by sheer force of character a way to change the image in the direction of this family with an out openly repudiating this father he loved in his quest for redemption and respectability John D jr. would push his family to the pinnacle of American power [Music] one of his sons would reach for the highest prize the presidency and provoke a new generations rage and hostility [Music] for more than a century the Rockefellers wealth and influence have attracted both attention and suspicion and threatened to tear the family apart why do we want to preserve this problem why do we want to devote our lives to maintaining all these institutions that have been created by the family what is the purpose of all of this and I think for many of us we came to realize that the real problem of life is the integration of power and goodness [Music] October 9th 1901 the steam yacht wild duck sailed out of Providence Rhode Island [Music] board was one of the richest men in America john d rockefeller and his family [Music] was bound for an estate at Warwick neck on the west shore of Narragansett Bay soon the groom blogs would welcome 500 guests the lions of the Gilded Age outside the gates reporters gathered for the wedding of Rockefellers only son John jr. and Abby eldritch daughter of a powerful Rhode Island senator Pinkerton guards had been deployed to protect the bejeweled guests and glittering wedding presents they had another more dangerous assignment [Music] john d rockefeller founder of Standard Oil was the most hated man in America described as monstrous evil cruel Rockefeller was hounded by reporters stalked by strangers asking for money he had taken to keeping a revolver by his bed [Music] there had been kidnaped threats against his family and letters warning of homemade bombs destined for the Rockefellers house [Music] this was a family under siege it would fall to the new bride and to the dutiful obedient son already oppressed by the burdens of growing up a Rockefeller to find a way forward for the family [Music] in the early 19th century they called this part of upstate New York the burned over district burned not by fire but by fire and brimstone by the blaze of Christian revivalism preachers urged a life of hard work prayer and good deeds to build the kingdom of God on earth it was in the midst of this evangelical fervor that John Davison Rockefeller was born in 1839 the second of five children his mother Eliza Davison Rockefeller was deeply religious Stern disciplined even as a young woman she had not been given two smiles and left her but she had this fatal moment of weakness one day when William Avery rockefeller appeared on her doorstep peddling cheap trinkets and he had a little slate that was tied to his buttonhole and on the slate he had trucked I am deaf and dumb this was part of his con men routine and Eliza quite out of character was immediately smitten by this charming rascal and in fact proclaimed in his presence I'd marry him if he weren't deaf and dumb he's a scoundrel apparently an enchanting scoundrel in person and he certainly enchanted Eliza and apparently enchanted a good many other women too which is part of being a scoundrel unlike his devout wife William Avery rockefeller kept away from the church [Music] he was a traveling man a salesman who sold quack cures from a wagon out on the western frontier people whispered about his Footloose life they called him devil do he would come and go as he pleased never with advanced warning he'd be away for months they'd be credit at the store one winner he ran up a bill in one store of $1,000 in the 19th century that's an enormous sum of money but then he would come back most frequently at night so people would never know where he came from and he would tell stories of his exploits that were never quite complete enough to pin him down as to what he had done or where he had done it [Music] devil bills laughter and music flooded the house he would be fingering wads of cash wearing fancy new clothes he once appeared with a patchwork tablecloth made out of banknotes I had a peculiar training in my home John Dee observed of his childhood it seemed to be a business training from the beginning bill Rockefeller admitted to one of his neighbors I do business deals with my sons and I always try to cheat them to make them sharp now John Dee did not always like those lessons in business but he absorbed them his father lent him money always at the prevailing interest rate then deliberately called in the loans without warning to make sure his son had kept reserves with devil bill John Dee discovered the excitement of taking a big risk the allure of cold cash Eliza taught him the sober habits of her Christian faith thrift hardwork and perfect self-control he was like a little adult when he went to school students talked about him being mr. serious and although he had a wonderful sense of humor that was very sly for the most part he'd behaved very rigidly even and in liked things orderly the way his mother did things occurred according to schedules and there was a reward for good behavior and there was a sacrifice for bad behavior in 18-49 the world fell apart for the Rockefeller family bill was accused of the rape of a maid he had hired to work in the household rather than confront the charges he fled leaving the family alone to face the scandal it was a moment of intense shame for ten-year-old John and I think that it was in the face of the malicious tongues of village gossips that john d rockefeller developed this very very secretive self-reliant nature because people were always whispering about his father and john d himself would not have known the truth of his father but i think that he felt that he would face down the village gossips by developing this very hard and stoic air Eliza and her five children found refuge in the local Baptist Church each Sunday when the collection plate was passed around she urged young John to contribute his few pennies [Music] he came to associate the church with charity a Baptist preacher once encouraged him to make as much money as he could then give away as much as he could it was at this moment Rockefeller later recalled that the financial plan of my life was formed but the sound of coins in the collection plate still had the distant ring of devil bill John Day came to associate money with those rare times that father came home flushed with cash from the road and that the Rockefellers briefly functioned as a real family and I think the fact that John day grew up in this perpetually insecure situation wondering what when father would come home wondering if they would pay off the credit at the the general store created a person who had an abnormal need not only for a large amount of money but for constant security and somebody who disliked surprises somebody who wanted to master chance and outwit fate [Music] fate delivered John D one more bitter surprise he soon discovered that his father had taken a second wife under an assumed name shielding his mother from the shame John kept the bigamy a secret to carry on his double life bill moved the family to Cleveland then he disappeared again leaving them alone in the new city and this turned relations between John D and his father stone-cold I think in the long run it had the effect of leading John D to decide to make a life for himself that was as different from his father's as he could manage without quite abandoning things that he still thought a value in what his father taught him like business John had hoped to go to college now he dropped out of high school and started looking for work to help support the family I did not go to any small establishments in call I was after something big he found a job as an assistant bookkeeper but threw himself into it with missionary intensity as soon as he starts working there's nothing light-hearted or carefree about this young 16 year old boy he closely reviews every bill and jumps on errors of even a few pennies in the bill he's amazed at the laxity and inefficiency of these much older bosses who are much more experienced and I think that that was the thing that distinguished Rockefeller from an early age not so much brilliant flashing intelligence but this thorough plodding systematic way that he did things John began to keep a ledger noting every expenditure large and small for him numbers were sacred [Music] John D's ledger took on a special role of being a kind of conscience I would say he recorded his contributions to various causes to church every penny that he gave to a poor little girl he saw on the street to abolitionist causes and he would use this throughout his life as a way evaluating himself line upon line as his earnings grew his ambition quickened he borrowed $1,000 from devil bill with interest and plunged into the risky business of commodity trading buying and selling meat and grain he was just 18 [Music] only a year later with something big he was looking for a surfaced in the backwoods of Pennsylvania oil to grease the wheels of America's infant industries oil to fuel an explosion of growth news of the discovery Unleashed pandemonium as thousands of speculators descended upon the region [Music] overnight wildcatters stripped away whole forests and put up thousands of rickety Derrick's hoping to strike black gold as the oil gushed skyward fantastic stories appeared of instant fortunes among the cleveland businessmen learned john d rockefeller he was no wildcatter he saw that drilling for oil was a very risky business refining not drilling he decided was where the steady money was to be made [Music] soon a new rail line linked Cleveland with the oil region [Music] Rockefeller built his refinery right beside it it was one of the first in the city to produce kerosene the new fuel for lamps that was cheap and cleaned the poor man's light as John Dee called it would bring a brilliant glow into American homes the soaring demand for it he was convinced would make him rich I shall never forget how hungry I was in those days he later run I ran up and down the tops of freight cars I hurried up the boys obsessed with the business of war he mastered every detail developed new products to sell by age 25 his refinery was one of the largest in the world he really mortgaged his life up to the hilt he borrowed tens of thousands of dollars which is the equivalent of course of millions today he had the strength of this vision that this was where his destiny was and this is where the destiny of this country was that country was going to kind of ride to greatness on this tidal wave of oil and he constantly felt that he would inevitably triumph in some fundamental way he honestly believed that he had a calling to make money and that it was a gift that had been bestowed upon him by God just as some people could sing opera and other people could paint beautifully he had a particular aptitude for acquiring wealth and he considered it a god-given gift John D tended his faith as carefully as his business as a lowly clerk he paid for a slaves freedom and gave to a Catholic orphanage as he grew rich his donations grew more generous especially for his Church in Cleveland he falls in love with this church he sweeps the chapel he rings the bell he lights the candles he teaches in the Sunday school he seems to find in the church a refuge from the sort of sin that he is encountered with his father soon John was drawn to a young woman as devout and determined as he was Laura Spellman was an 1840s 1850s feminist she was the valedictorian of her high school graduating class the same class that John Dee was in and the title of her address was I can paddle my own canoe and it was a plea for women suffrage in 1855 when John courted her it was very different from the other young men of her set who were also after her we would see her balls and parties he'd come to her house and they might play a little piano together but then they would often sit down with his ledger books and go over them together and she apparently found them just as interesting as he did on September 8 1864 John and Laura were married in a small private ceremony my great-grandmother was a figure who perhaps had a bit of hell and brimstone in her philosophy who basically believed through deeds you go to heaven and therefore you could very likely go to hell if you weren't properly motivated and properly achieving like his devout mother Laura strengthened in John's sense that he was doing God's work not only in church but also in business Rockefellers future however was harnessed to an industry in trouble so many wells were flowing he lamented that the price of oil kept falling yet they went right on drilling he saw an industry plagued by overproduction and his own success threatened by what he described as ruinous cutthroat competition John Dee was shrewd enough and he was analytical enough that he realized that in order to figure out a way to save his own firm and his own newly won fortune that he had to figure out a solution for the entire industry it was at that point that John Dee began to conceive of the oil industry as one big interrelated mechanism and you couldn't just change one component you had to control the entire machine in a move that would transform the American economy Rockefeller set out to replace a world of independent oilmen with a giant company controlled by him in 1870 begging bankers for more loans he formed Standard Oil of Ohio [Music] the next year he quietly put what he called our plan his campaign to dominate the volatile oil industry into devastating effect Rockefeller needed that the refiner was the lowest transportation cost could bring rivals to their needs he entered into a secret alliance with the railroads called the South improvement company in exchange for large regular shipments Rockefeller and his allies secured transport rates far lower than those of their bewildered competitors Ida Tarbell the daughter of an oil man later remembered how men like her father struggled to make sense of events an uneasy rumor began running up and down the oil regions shiron freight rates were going up moreover all members of the South improvement company a company unheard of until now were exempt nobody went in to find out his neighbors opinion on every lip there was but one word and that was conspiracy what it really represented was the face of Monopoly it immediately became clear that the entire nature of the enterprise was going to change in ways that spelled their doom and so there was a shock of recognition that they were going to be left behind and that a whole world that had been opened up to them was soon to close the image that was always used was that of the Anaconda the squeezing Python like grips of this economic snake that was just taking individual entrepreneurs and just putting them out of business and reducing them to kind of economic straight where they had no alternative but to really to sell out to sell out to the principles in this conspiracy it was a conspiracy really it was one of the first great economic conspiracies in this country in an effort to thwart the scheme many independents refused to sell crude oil to Rockefeller and his associates undaunted Rockefeller used the threat of the South improvement company to intimidate his rival refiners in Cleveland his brother and business partner William characterized the plan as war or peace sell out to Standard Oil or suffer the consequences at first they approach their targets with deference and flattering [Music] Rockefeller himself used his own considerable talent for persuasion presenting Standard Oil as a brotherhood based on cooperation he had this missionary faith that he was destined to guide this industry and when he took over his rivals he not only wanted their plans who often wanted the manager so it was not in his interest to alienate them he much preferred convincing people to sell to him voluntarily rather than trying to squeeze them through Parrot tactics although if necessary he would resort to a very rough methods in order to soften them up for he used a phrase to give them a good sweating before he negotiated with them Rockefeller might create a shortage of the railroad tank cars that transported oil he might go out and buy up all the barrels on the market so a competitor would have no place to store his horseshit he would even buy up all the available chemicals that were necessary to refine away Rockefeller instructed standard oil men to communicate in code the company was nicknamed Club john d rockefeller was referred to as chowder many of Rockefellers targets had no idea that the local refiners who were slashing prices and acting like competitors were actually part of Rockefellers growing empire in just two months he had taken over 22 of the 26 cleveland refineries revealing the single-minded drive it would make him both the wonder and the terror of American business nobody knew what he sounded like nobody heard him he walled himself off and and the people who didn't know him though the people who did find him ruthless had reason to find him ruthless because you come up against someone who has no self doubts who has a vision and who has no qualms about cheating that vision because he doesn't think he's doing wrong once he made his mind up you might as well sell your company because it was going to be part of Standard Oil [Music] methodically secretly john d rockefeller was doing more than transforming a single industry he was changing forever the way American did business the day of combination is here to stay he defend individualism has gone never to return by 1879 when Rockefeller is 40 he controls 90% of the oil refining in the world within a few years he will control 90% of the marketing of oil and a third of all of the oil wells so this very young man controls what is not only a national but an international monopoly in a commodity that is about to become the most important strategic commodity in the world economy [Music] Rockefeller relished time spent with Laura after the birth of their first child Elizabeth they moved to Euclid Avenue Cleveland's Millionaire's Row although Rockefeller could have afforded any mansion on the street he deliberately picked a more modest house where his three remaining children were born Alta Edith and his only son John Jr convinced that riches led to Singh Rockefeller now one of America's richest men faced a difficult task in raising his children they seemed a bit afraid of this wealth and they felt they should continue to live as they had in the past with very simple wardrobe children sharing toys children earning allowances that this was an important part of building character and continuing the virtuous life that in some way given to too much luxury would lead one astray Laure compelled young john to wear his sister's remade hand-me-downs until he was 8 she once proudly confided to a neighbor I am so glad my son has told me what he wants for Christmas so now it can be denied him after she was diagnosed with consumption the Rockefellers began to spend more time at Forest Hill their 79 acres state outside of Cleveland despite its grand facade he insisted the interior remained bare of all signs of luxury or pretension money jr. recalled was something there like air or food or any other element yet it was never easily attainable in the setting were all this frugality and restraint was practiced in the household he was surrounded by hundreds of acres of gardens lakes where they could ice skate but every outer manifestation of wealth and then in the intimate family setting he was being raised like a poor little kid to earn pocket money jr. mended doors killed floods and sharpened pencils dutifully keeping track of every penny in a ledger just like his father he attended prayer meetings and recited temperance slogans without complaint by age 10 he had signed a solemn oath that he would abstain from tobacco profanity and the drinking of any intoxicating beverages jr. and his sisters were constantly pushed by their mother to cleanse their souls of sin every Sunday afternoon Laura would sit down with the children and they would discuss their what she called their ill-conceived actions of the week and that was where the bisetta ng sins and the idea was to examine what they did and basically ask forgiveness and analyze how they could improve their behavior for the next week the most important lesson that she taught the children was what is your duty and that is what is to guide your life service to others you are not here just for your own enjoyment or even just simply to pray you have a purpose beyond that Laura was the disciplinarian in the family and John Dee senior a doting cheerful indulgent father he plays with his children his son teaches him to escape when they're a little older he ties a white handkerchief to the back of his belt and he leads the kids on bicycle chases across his estate [Music] Rockefeller led his children through the winding roads at Forest Hill revealing a boyish excitement that few Outsiders ever saw [Music] he loved to play games electrifying the children with daring feats sudden thrusts and unexpected wheeling turns followed by groups of July 21 [Music] Jr recalled father never told us what not to do he was one with us [Music] although Rockefeller was a merry companion for his children he and Laura kept them cut off from the outside world we went rarely practically not at all to neighbor's houses John Jr remembered no school friends the austerity drilled into John D by his mother Eliza still reigned in the Rockefeller family at age 76 immobilized by a stroke she died with her eldest son at her side she never knew her husband had taken a second wife Rockefeller expected his estranged father to attend the funeral when devil bill failed to show it was the last straw the day before Liza's funeral John Dee instructed the preacher to describe his mother as a widow this was part of his revenge he was editing his father out of existence and he never forgave his father and he distinctly left the impression with people and subsequent years that his father was dead [Music] in 1883 Rockefeller moved his family to New York the center of America's burgeoning industrial economy the king of Standard Oil now set out to transform his company into something bigger and more powerful than anything the world had ever seen [Music] Rockefeller reigned over a patchwork of company's cumbersome to manage they was looking for a way to skirt a law that then prohibited combining the operations of businesses in different states [Music] his solution was to have stockholders in 40 companies secretly trade in their shares for certificates in the Standard Oil Trust the trust became a corporation of corporations Rockefeller had devised an ingenious LegalShield behind it he could command his vast business empire smoothly and in complete secrecy in 1885 he moved Standard Oil into an imposing granite fortress near Wall Street 26 Broadway soon became the world's most famous business address it was also a hated symbol of the monopoly so powerful that no law seemed able to control it small businessman middle-class Americans people who were independent who were used to believing that hard work and determined effort was the way to success looked at corporations like the Standard Oil with their unprecedented size and felt afraid and so feeling ran extremely high and the hostility was intense Rockefeller saw himself as a prophet of a new order he called it cooperation his critics called it monopoly his company would be the world's first great multinational corporation efficient and stable with vast economies of scale during the first 20 years of Standard Oil john d rockefeller managed to lower the price of kerosene from 23 cents a gallon to 7 cents a gallon and he managed to improve the quality of the product at the same time he was a monopolist he was a rough an orphan and unscrupulous monopolist but he was also a very smart and enterprising businessman there was nothing complacent about him and it was one of the ways that he was able to justify these rough methods to himself Rockefeller had wanted to remain invisible but he wielded such power that he became a magnet for suspicion [Music] hearings investigations and lawsuits began to challenge the Standard Oil Empire John Dee was called to testify in one forum after another he was a kind of difficult witness to kind of pin down because on the one hand he was verbally fairly clever actually and keen and in terms of his ability to kind of listen to the questions when he was being investigated about the South improvement company for instance one interrogator said something about the southern improvement company and he seized him on that misnomer to say and John Dee said I wasn't part of that one reporter described 26 Broadway as a cave for pirates a den for the cutthroats of Commerce reporters who eluded the security guards encountered doors with special locks the trick was to twist the ribbon with thumb and forefinger before turning the night if a trespasser did not know the secret he could find himself trapped between locked doors [Music] half of America seemed willing to lynch Rockefeller the other half wanted alone he received on average 50 to 60 thousand letters a month asking for help dozens of people followed him in the street literally crowds stood around the Standard Oil offices waiting for him to come out you know little children painfully thin crying in the streets on rockefeller felt overwhelmed by 1889 John D pegged his fortune at more than forty million dollars he had always been a generous man but at the same time loathed to waste the penny [Music] he hired Reverend Frederic gates a Baptist minister to help him forge a new set of principles for philanthropy [Music] senior began very seriously to rethink not just the vehicles but the purposes of charity charity is a way of remaking the society and not ameliorating evil so Curie scarlet fever don't provide another scarlet fever ward in a Children's Hospital find a more productive way of growing corn rather than making a soup kitchen he was ahead of his time daddy still is in the coming years Rockefeller would fund the education of black women at Spelman College in Atlanta found the University of Chicago the Midwestern equivalent of the Ivy League support groundbreaking medical research and public health campaigns Frederick Gates pushed him on warning mr. Rockefeller your fortune is rolling up like an avalanche you must distribute it faster than it grows if you do not it will crush you and your children and your children's children already strained by the demands of making money rockefeller now staggered under the new pressures of giving it away I investigated and worked myself almost to a nervous breakdown he said in groping my way through the ever-widening field of philanthropic endeavor [Music] suffering from chronic stomach problems Rockefeller took time off from work and retreated to Forest Hill [Music] to regain his health he worked outdoors rode his bike and ate simply [Music] by the end of the summer he had gained 15 pounds [Music] still he resisted returning to work and now contemplated something unthinkable retirement [Music] hearing was this wealthy person with great power and in his mid-fifties he gave it all up no in the history I've never seen anybody do anything like that and then be happy without it see he incredible wholeness and self sufficiency see power money status position were no longer important to him in 1897 john d rockefeller retired from Standard Oil keeping the presidency in name only no public announcement was made few Americans realized that the man they believed responsible for running the most powerful corporation on earth had surrendered the reins when asked why Rockefeller retained the president's title one senior director explained he had to keep it cases against us were pending in the courts and we told him that if any of us have to go to jail he would have to go with us as the only son and heir john d rockefeller jr. carried a heavy burden from an early age he had been taught that the responsibilities of the family fortune and name would be his to bear by age 18 he had suffered too nervous collapses john d rockefeller jr. has some really rather impossible tasks ahead of him because by the time he comes of age his father has been successful beyond anybody's wildest dreams including his own to the point where the son cannot possibly match the father moreover he is certainly familiar with the proverb of those to whom much has been given much shall be required and by the time he comes into his own he realizes he's been given more than anybody else so of course from him shall be required more than anybody else [Music] intensely conscientious jr. entered Brown University in September 1893 he still wrote all his expenses down in a ledger and bended his own clothes slowly however he began to wean himself from his strict upbringing for the first time in his life he went to the theatre enjoyed football games and even once smoked a pack of cigarettes to the horror of his mother he learned to dance soon he met Abby Aldrich a popular Providence girl undaunted by his name for his money Abby Aldrich because she was raised in a liberated relaxed artistic family was like an injection of dynamism and and interest in the larger world which John had been shielded from Abby's father Nelson Aldrich was a controversial United States Senator from Rhode Island he was fiercely criticized by the press for being the prime power broker of the great trusts Jr admired Abby's ability to be loyal to her father and ignore the criticism he attracted [Music] as he approached a graduation he still worshiped his own father and was deeply wounded by relentless attacks in the press [Music] in 1897 fresh out of college junior went to work for Standard Oil my one thought from the time I was a boy he recalled was to help my father when he got there nobody bothered to tell him how he was expected to help he was given a desk he was given a salary he was giving some miscellaneous chores but nobody told him what was expected of him he had to find out for himself where his place in the world was and perhaps that's what senior had in mind was letting him find his own way but in this case it made life more difficult for the son anxious to succeed it's something jr. tried investing he trusted the advice of a shady Wall Street speculator suddenly cautious jr. lost 1 million dollars of his father's money he went to see his father with what must have been a terrible churning sensation in his stomach his father reacted very patiently chandi senior asked him a lot of questions and instead of in any way scolding or reprimanding him at the end says all right John I'll take care of it he saw that his son was flagellating himself about this incident and that there was no need punishing a son who was so clearly punishing himself fearing the family's vast fortune would overwhelm his son senior begged jr. to relax Laure however pushed him forward you are the son of the King of Kings she reminded him and so you can never do what will dishonor your father or be disloyal to the king [Music] Jr anguished over whether to marry Abby and for four years prayed every day for divine guidance gently his mother ended his agony saying of course you love miss Aldrich why don't you go at once and tell Gerson that fall the freewheeling senator Aldrich invited guests to an extravagant wedding [Music] in private yachts the elite of gilded age society descended on his rhode island estate many in the press saw this union of money and political power in dark terms one reporter warned the chief exploiter of the American people is now closely allied by marriage with the chief schemer for the austere controlled Rockefellers Jr's new wife would be a liberating influence when they're first married and jr. says well you'll have to keep a ledger she just says no I won't and when he gives her a thousand dollars as a wedding present a rather interesting act in itself she gives it to the YWCA in Providence so immediately you see she's going to assert herself and he joined the Rockefellers as they were about to enter the most painful moment in their history her husband would soon find himself in the harsh light of public scrutiny alongside his father [Music] when John Dee was in his fifties his hair started to fall out and his mustache began to fall out and suddenly in 1901 all of his body hair fell out not just from his head all over his body and this was a very crushing and humiliating thing to suffer from because when you see photographs of him completely bald in the early 1900's he looks like he could be in his 70s or 80s Rockefeller had looked forward to the end of his long career but now the scandal surrounding his rise to power would be resurrected in haunting detail Rockefeller and Standard Oil were about to be investigated by a vigorous new President Theodore Roosevelt and an increasingly assertive press in 1901 the managing editor of McClure's magazine Ida Tarbell decided to research America's most secretive businessman [Music] she began her investigation with an emotional journey back to Pennsylvania where oil men like her father and brother had fought Standard Oil [Music] he or she talked with legions of Rockefeller enemies the task confronting me is a monstrous one she wrote my dream of the octopus day and tonight and can think of nothing else when Ida Tarbell started writing the series Rockefeller didn't realize how powerful the press had become in an age when Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst had massed newspaper chains didn't realize the new sophistication of muckrakers like Ida Tarbell who were capable of taking a very complex subject slicing it open and really dissecting a person's life or an institution in 1902 Tarbell's revelations gripped the nation she brought to life a drama in which independent oil men were crushed by the mighty Standard Oil she documented the monopolies collusion with the railroads the kickbacks and shady dealings [Music] she exposed the swelling's and crushing the spies and codes the secret ownership of supposed rivals there was not a lazy bone in the organization not an incompetent hand or stupid head and she wrote but they had never played fair and that ruined their greatness for me because the series was such a great success in the circulation in McClure's kept jumping up they allowed the series to run to nineteen installments and what happened with each installment was not only did the audience grow larger and Teddy Roosevelt was avidly reading it in writing fan letters to Ida Tarbell a lot of new sources were coming out of the woodwork as it went on and so that there was a tremendous crescendo and the public kept getting angrier and angrier at Rockefeller President Theodore Roosevelt denounced him as a lawbreaker [Music] novelist Leo Tolstoy cried out that no honest man should work with him Rockefeller was called a pirate a Buccaneer a robber baron he received torrents of abusive mail even death threats still he refused to answer any of the charges leveled against him from his mother's silence in the face of family scandal he had learned as he put it to let the world wag I think you've he had responded early to the table l-series the wave of press and political denunciation might have subsided a bit but it senior knew that he could respond to something's in the series and say that's just not true he also knew that there were plenty of other things that were true about the rebates about the bribing and so on so I think he probably in the end knew that he had no choice Tarbell traveled to Cleveland to lives the Titan at one of his rare public appearances at the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church there was an awful age in his face she observed the oldest man I have ever seen mr. Rockefeller may have made himself the richest man in the world but he has paid nothing but paying ever plows such lines Tarbell described Rockefellers agitated behavior the way he was searching the aisles for possible enemies mr. Rockefeller she concluded for all of his conscious power was afraid afraid of his own kind [Music] she then capped the 19 part series with a two-part character study where she described Rockefeller as hideous and leprous and appearance and that actually wounded him much more than her expose of his business methods he felt that it was very unfair to have portrayed him in this ghoulish fashion and to make the fact that he had lost all his hair somehow proof of his depravity Ida Tarbell really took a toll on the family John Jr certainly had what could only be described as a really catastrophic nervous breakdown senior had serious continuous stomach ailments his wife was ill so I think that the whole family not just senior was reacting to what they saw as a body blow isolated and discouraged john d rockefeller jr. confided to his Bible class I've never had more occasion to seek the sympathy of friends all the money in the world will not take the place of friends Rich's the young heir warned his pupils read but sin this must have been an especially distressing period because as he's working at Standard Oil he has a lot of contact with his father's hand-picked successor John D Archibald who's engaged an enormous amount of political corruption and so I think that the Tarbell series is especially distressing because he wants desperately to believe in his father's innocence and yet he's increasingly disturbed at 26 Broadway by this sordid atmosphere of Standard Oil which meant that on some level he must have suspected that a lot of these things were true a drifted Standard Oil Jr threw himself into building a new home for his father located at Pocantico Hills 30 miles north of New York City the site was called [ __ ] it Dutch for Luca it had a panoramic view of the Hudson River soon it became a haven for the family outside its walls reporters gathered demanding answers for jr. facing a hostile public became increasingly difficult as he and Abby began to have children their daughter Abby nicknamed Bev's was soon followed by john d rockefeller the third who was heralded as the richest baby in history newspapers gloated that the titan could not visit his first grandson because of fear he would be served with a subpoena with a rash of lawsuits now pending against Standard Oil Rockefeller began leading the life of a fugitive keeping his whereabouts secret tyke it became both his prison and fortress surrounded by Pinkerton guards as the Tarbell series due to its close the federal government announced sweeping antitrust indictments against Standard Oil [Music] senior was determined to carry on confident in his own rectitude [Music] Jr could not here was the son of those controversial businessman in America who had to figure out by sheer force of character a way to change the image in the direction of this family without openly repudiating this father he loved he had to be both loyal to his father and loyal to his principles at the same time even though his principles often differed from those of his father in 1910 john d rockefeller jr. decided to retire from the Standard Oil Trust and devote himself exclusively to helping his father give away the family fortune with jr. at his side senior launched the Rockefeller Foundation endowed with 100 million dollars its ambitious goal was to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world other people may have had trouble reconciling senior as the greatest philanthropist of his age I think what's important to note is that senior never had a moment's worry the notion that he gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to assuage guilt is nonsense the notion that junior became a great philanthropist because of worry and guilt not so easy to call Junior was a man plagued by self-doubt on May fifteenth 1911 the Supreme Court of the United States declared that Standard Oil was a monopoly in restraint of trade and should be dissolved Rockefeller heard of the decision while golfing at Concord with a priest from the local Catholic Church father JP Lenin and Rockefeller reacted with amazing aplomb he turned to the Catholic priests and said father Lenin have you some money and the priest was very startled by the question and said no and then he said why and Rockefeller replied by Standard Oil as rockefeller for saw the individual standard oil companies were worth more than the single corporation in the next few years their shares doubled and tripled in value by the time the reign of cash was over Rockefeller had the greatest personal fortune in history nearly 2 percent of the American economy and it was really losing the antitrust case that converted john d rockefeller into history's first billionaire so that Standard Oil was punished in the federal antitrust case for john d rockefeller senior most assuredly was not [Music] rockefellers lucky streak was not over yet justice the electric lightbulb threatened to wipe out the need for kerosene the automobile the market for gasoline Sparky forea in the oil industry rockefellers soaring fortunes made it seem as if he had outwitted his critics again increasingly genial and relaxed he cast off his business suit and experimented with a variety of wigs he delighted in the birth of juniors at second son Nelson born on seniors birthday three more boys followed Lawrence Winthrop and David with the Fuhrer / Standard Oil subsiding and the philanthropies launched jr. was determined to give his children an inheritance they could be proud of but his hopes of redeeming the family name were about to be shattered [Music] in the fall of 1913 beneath the majestic peaks of the Rockies a labor dispute was engulfing the coal mines of southern Colorado it would engulf the Rockefellers as well making the family once again the target of national outrage the explosion came on September 23rd in the foothills near Ludlow eight thousand miners struck a rockefeller owned company Colorado fuel and iron demanding more humane living and working conditions CF&I immediately evicted the strikers from their homes [Music] families were forced to move into a makeshift tent come beyond comfort grounds [Music] the striking miners came from 32 different countries some thought john d rockefeller was the president of the united states [Music] as both sides braced for a showdown CF and I brought in gunmen and had them deputized by County Sheriff's union organizers descended upon Colorado including the fiery mother Jones who led a protest on the state's capital in December four feet of snow fell on southern Colorado 20,000 men women and children shivered on the windswept plain [Music] with no end to the stalemate in sight john d rockefeller jr. was summoned to testify before congress although he was a company director he said he knew little of the situation and had put his faith in the managers on the scene then he declared his faith in the open shop the right not to join a union in approving senior rewarded his son with 10,000 shares of CF&I stock [Music] senior was no friend of labor unions and junior goes along without really thinking about it without realizing that it is damaging the men who were working for him without thinking about what it's doing to those community and without realizing what it can do to him on the morning of April 20th two weeks after juniors testimony a company of 35 National Guardsmen stationed themselves on a hill overlooking the tent colony in Ludlow when a shot rang out from an unknown location the guardsmen began ranking the camp with machine-gun fire and a pitched battle began trapped families sought shelter from the bullets in dirt bunkers hidden beneath the tents the cries of frightened children pierced the din of battle at dusk when the southbound local rumbled into work no families who had been trapped in terror seized the opportunity to escape behind the barrier of 36 freight cars [Music] as the train pulled away the brakeman reported seeing the tent colony engulfed by flames lit he claimed by the torch of a soldier [Music] the extent of the tragedy came to light the next morning in a bunker beneath one of the tents the bodies of two women and eleven children were discovered the New York Times reported they had suffocated like trap rats more terrified by the bullets which whistled above their heads than the flames accounts differed but the massacre had claimed at least 24 lives scores more were injured and burned too many there was no doubt who bore responsibility for the first time the full weight of public opinion descended directly upon juniors shoulders here was john d rockefeller Jr who was earnestly trying to redeem the family name who was trying to distance himself from the family's corporate past and all these unscrupulous actions that his father had been accused of and suddenly he's being accused of something far worse than anything that his father had been accused of which was complicity in the deaths of Ludlow angry pickets marched in front of juniors home and his office at 26 Broadway speakers urged mobs to shoot him down like a dog novelist upton sinclair publicly indicted jr. with the charge of murder radical workers threatened to storm the locked gates of Concord this especially rattled Junior whose mother Laura lay inside the walls close to death then a homemade bomb exploded in the tenement killing four radicals it was believed to be destined for Jr's townhouse but by December 1914 the miners relief funds were exhausted they were forced to return to work it appeared to many as if management had one but not to john d rockefeller jr. John D jr. saw I could have the blood of these people on me and my children for a generation and to his credit he eventually saw that he had to take a hand not only in cooling out that situation in Colorado and making it right but that he had a duty in some sense to regularize this unruly turbulent field of worker relations in America one of the first signs of juniors transformation came when he was summoned to testify before a government Commission investigating the strike on his way in he stopped to shake hands with Mother Jones I have never believed that you knew what those hireling is out there were doing Mother Jones told him understand John did something his father never would have done publicly admit that he had been wrong the young Rockefeller then promised to go to Ludlow himself and speak directly with the miners as he was about to make his journey of atonement his mother died one of the first sympathy notes came from Mother Jones in September 1915 jr. arrived in Ludlow he refused to carry a weapon or have bodyguards he sees the way in which miners lived he sees health in their children are he understands that that there is no potable drinking water in most of the camps in fact for someone with a reputation for immense rectitude and shyness comes out of himself preaching a gospel of cooperation and Christian Brotherhood jr. laid out a plan for a panel to address worker grievances he also promised the miners they would not be fired if they chose to join a union instead his approach worked the miners voted for his plan in a secret ballot the usually straight-laced junior took the hand of a miner's wife and gaily broke into a dance when a four-piece band struck up the hesitation waltz jon's dreary as this child who had to eat plain food and we're playing clothes and be a plain little kid he knew how to conduct himself with minors and families who were living in tents and who were living in great deprivation he ate the food they had he he hopped up to the gravy with his bread it's a wonderful portrait of a man who has it turned out you-you-you kind of see Laura Spelvin over his shoulder realizing that she brought good to this boy as well as repression [Music] selling the plan to CF&I management was not easy junior cashiered the Rockefeller agent on the scene when his father's advisors protested he brought in his own team when the dust is settled jr. is running the show and his father by his silence says go ahead and it's at that point that he really becomes the master of the house the senior hasn't transferred all the money to him in fact it's after he succeeds in minimizing the damage at Ludlow that senior begins transferring the enormous amounts of money to juniors name [Music] as a boy jr. had learned the biblical saying that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven [Music] was deeply troubled by the image of his father as a robber baron and John Dee juniors saw his life's mission as trying to remove the tank that seemed to exist around the Rockefeller or wealth and the Rockefeller family and the Rockefeller name years before senior had been warned that his vast wealth like an avalanche could crush him and his children and his children's children [Music] now his son jr. faced that danger as he drove himself mercilessly to redeem the family name the weight of the Rockefeller fortune would threaten to overwhelm him [Music] liquid New Jersey July 10 1918 dear some I am giving you 166,000 72 shares of the stock the dears are oil company time today giving you 20 million six hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars par valuing bonds of the state of New York dears and corporate stock averse and giving you a check for $500,000 it will be available for use on Monday next by the early 1920s john d rockefeller senior had turned over close to half a billion dollars to his son and with it a heavy responsibility the stewardship of the great fortune I am indeed blessed beyond measure to have a son whom I can trust to do this most important work with tenderest affection father John D Jr's saw his life's mission as trying to remove the taint that seemed to exist around the Rockefeller or wealth and in many ways through his philanthropy trying to finally justify the accumulation of this great fortune [Music] whether restoring the palace of versaille saving the giant redwoods in California or founding a medical college in China junior was consumed by his work asked by a reporter where her husband was Abbi Rockefeller replied I don't know where John is anymore I'm sure he's out somewhere saving the world he can invest in a profound way with this money and he can in some sense be at a Titan in the same way that his father was he invested in every avenue medicine science education the arts foreign policy [Music] the pressure proved too much for Junior very often he would come home at the end of the day with a throbbing migraine headache and he would lie down in the bedroom with a compress on his forehead he was really putting himself on the line in a courageous and personal fashion his headaches became so incapacitating that he was forced to take a rest cure at dr. Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan where he was diagnosed with overexertion while the son sacrificed himself to redeem the father the father seemed remarkably at ease long away from business and free of the burden of his fortune john d rockefeller now in his mid 80s settled into his retirement in [Music] his old age senior showed the world decided himself only those who knew him best and ever glimpsed as the former recluse played up to the movie cameras through the magic of public relations john d rockefeller senior was transformed from a reviled robber baron into a genial old man famous for dispensing dimes every day he appeared at the golf course at 12 past 12 to indulge in his favorite pastime he's gay he's Lively he's jaunty he flirts with pretty young women he loves to sing hymns and tell corny jokes and mimic people he'd spend his mornings working on the stock market and then he would go out and golf or ride around in the car in the afternoon but always with women or children along everybody notices that he's fascinated with women if he meets a group of pretty young women he will invite them to play golf or come to lunch one of his many rituals was that every afternoon at 3:15 he and eight to ten other people would take a drive in the country and John Dee always sat in the middle of the back seat and he preferred to have a buxom lady to his right and one to his left he would then take a blanket and he would draw the blanket up to their chins and then his hands would be Strang underneath to the point where the back seat became known as the hot seat then there is a recorded episode of a young woman jumping out of the hot seat and telling the driver that old rooster ought to be handy so he developed a reputation for these wandering hands and this behavior to people who had known him earlier seemed completely had of character as the first son and bearer of the family name john d rockefeller the third was serious and introverted boy was from an early age cast in the mould of domestic air his grandfather would write him at his birthday and Christmas time and say things like I look forward to when you can join your father in helping to carry the heavy burden and so on so John grew up thinking that he had a very specific role that had been delimited for him there was not an awful lot of choice for John in 1929 fresh out of Princeton John arrived at New York's most famous business address to take his assigned place helping his father run the family businesses and philanthropies the debris of the world's richest air attracted so much attention the jr. decided to hold a press conference John comes in shy reserved uncertain he's never done this kind of thing before and is questioned by all of the assembled New York City press corps they were all barking questions at him and attempting to get underneath and John progressively withdrew as the press conference went on one of the reporters wrote about him sort of crossing his legs and trying to twist himself into a pretzel he was tremendously uncomfortable with the attention and I think began to view his role as this is very serious burdened I'm afraid of making a mistake and I think it was a very very difficult moment in his life at the end of the painful ordeal John wrote in his diary must get out of the papers for a long time now in 1929 john d rockefeller jr. was putting the final touches on the Riverside Church a magnificent structure he had erected on Manhattan's Upper West Side built on a monumental scale Riverside resembled Europe's great cathedrals but only in its architecture it certainly hearts back to a Gothic cathedral but as statues of saints and martyrs are placed around traditional cathedrals there are statues of scientists and law givers there's even a statue of Darwin in Riverside Church now that's a statement while he remained committed to the Christian faith of his mother and grandmother jr. had come to believe that scientific progress was an expression of God's will and the means to create God's kingdom on earth this is what jr. embodies both the old and the new the old revivalist impulse to reform the world and the new measures that are coming out of science and business and so business like efficiency and scientific research become the new means the new tools for achieving the old reform Crusades Christian fundamentalists in the 1920s saw juniors embrace of science as a rejection of the Bible's teachings they worried that the richest man in the world was extending his influence into the religious realm one preacher put it in apocalyptic terms when one man can control the financial world the educational world and practically the religious world the day of the Antichrist is not far behind by now the rockefeller fortune was estimated at 1 billion dollars invested not only in the companies that once made up Standard Oil but also in banking and in new industries armed with his vast wealth Jr had become as formidable a philanthropist as his father had been a businessman sometimes he even employed similar tactics [Music] father had this great love and joy in opening up wherever he was but it was made at Arizona Wyoming the beauty of nature so people could share he took us on voyages to see America we were camping and building a lot of cabins and riding horseback and we were hiking and then Nelson and I were avid photographers so we were taking pictures and looking for the best view wherever we went [Music] during a family trip to Wyoming jr. was awed by the majestic Teton Mountains their beauty he said surpassed anything he had ever beheld what he saw below in the town of Jackson Hole dismayed him he saw the honky-tonks and newsstands and so on that were being put in the view of the beautiful Teton Mountains and persuaded him to buy the land and give that to what is now a part of Grand Teton National Park [Music] Jr probably spent somewhere around 13 million dollars in acquiring land around Jackson Hole Wyoming initially as did most of the Rockefellers he bought that through a cover company nothing surprising anytime the Rockefeller name got involved prices skyrocketed nothing illegal about it though probably he got some extra special help from the Park Service identifying acreage the way jr. acquired the Grand Tetons was a substantial use of power and in that sense the philanthropic impulse is not necessarily different from Standard Oil remember senior thought that Standard Oil was not just a profit-making corporation but a way of making the world a better place Jr's not for profit and enterprises we're not different in that regard like the independent refiners crushed by Standard Oil local businessmen were outraged he encountered tremendous opposition and resentment there were new ranch operators and local cattlemen who felt that these were rich folks from back east who were throwing their weight around and trying to ruin their way of life and they didn't see it as a gift they saw it as this rich family that was pushing them around and it was a protracted battle [Music] park is beautiful but it was developed in the way it was because juniors thought that's the way it ought to be and he had the money and the contacts to make it happen for junior preservation providing an escape from a modern world which he found uncomfortable at Williamsburg he spent 55 million dollars to restore Virginia's colonial capital to an idealized version of the past at The Cloisters a museum on the northern tip of Manhattan he created a medieval retreat and filled it with ancient treasures juniors interest in art went backwards he was interested in older art historical art and certainly that is what the cloisters displays beautifully but while Junior sought peace in the old his wife Abby found excitement in the new she was attracted by the unusual adventurist inner-directed art she liked experimentation she was open to new ideas and also she wanted to understand the art and her children would grow up to understand the word she wanted to be a modern mother like Beauty wherever she found it and she found it in many different places both in nature and in contemporary art and that's where they pretty much parted company in 1939 after 10 years in a temporary home the Museum of Modern Art MoMA opened its doors Dustoff Fifth Avenue on a site long occupied by the old-fashioned town dwellings of the Rockefeller family stands the spanking new home of a nationally important institution junior not only donated over 6 million dollars but had the Rockefeller home torn down to make room for the museum in exchange he extracted a promise Abby made a bargain with jr. that they sell their property on 54th Street and moved to an apartment and he agreed to do it provided she agreed to cut back most of her activities at MoMA he was concerned about her health and which was beginning to fail and so she used that as a bargaining chip for the Rockefellers the Museum of Modern Art would always be known as Mother's Museum if mother had a museum father had a mugging Rockefeller Center will always be the place that the Rockefellers can point to it's the physical embodiment of what their family accomplished it's putting the family stamp right on the face of New York City and therefore on the face of America it had been conceived in 1928 as yet another philanthropy a new home for the Metropolitan Opera and development of the surrounding three block area [Music] but then the stock market crashed in 1929 ruining millions of investors and wiping out more than half of the Rockefeller fortune Junior developed shingles frequent severe colds I walked the floors at night wondering where I'm going to get the money to build these buildings he wrote he stuck with a couple of rather substantial blocks of property he has to pay lease payments on them he has to pay property taxes on them and this is the absolute rock bottom of the country's economic history he can eat the loss or he can do something which is really very very risky Jr had been humiliated by the failure of his first business venture of 30 years before now he rose to the challenge he put up nearly 1/3 of his diminished water gambled on the massive project [Applause] with 13 buildings surrounding a 70 storey tower Rockefeller Center was designed on an epic scale described as a mixture of brashness and grandeur [Music] employing 75,000 workers it was the only major construction project in New York City in the grim days of the Great Depression it is an act of faith in America and I think Americans were fascinated by the size the magnitude and the fact that this man this family believed that there was a future for the country and this great monument was in effect built for that [Music] [Applause] in what would become a yearly tradition grateful workers lit the first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in 1933 in his vigorous old age john d rockefeller spoke often of reaching a hundred years [Music] he died on March 23rd 1937 at his winter home in Ormond Beach just two years short of his goal [Music] to the end of his days the king of Standard Oil long vilified as monstrous evil cruel believed if he was at peace with God [Music] I've carried this virus of my curse for so long I can't remember it's a quote from my grandfather I was only taught to work as well as play my life has been one long happy holiday full of work and full of play had dropped the wari on the way and God was good to me every day the funeral was held at kaikan the symbolic seat of the Rockefeller family and now juniors home all over the world in every office company and refinery of the former Standard Oil Empire work ceased for five minutes Rockefeller Center a city within a city reaches completion after eight years of construction planned in boom times and built during the Depression the Senate juts into the sky in 1939 as he put the last rivet in Rockefeller Center john d rockefeller jr. now 65 could look back on a life of achievement no man in America lived up to his ideals more than john d rockefeller jr. said Ida Tarbell the journalist whose expose of Standard Oil had so tarnished the family name I know of no father that has given better guidance to his son than has john d rockefeller by spreading his philanthropy as broadly as he did jr. gave a very large number of people reasons to remember the Rockefellers that had nothing to do with Standard Oil that had nothing to do with Ida Tarbell but that had to do with beauty and nature and scientific progress he succeeded to such an extent that by the time his own children reached adulthood in the 1930s it was probably very difficult for them to imagine the firestorm of controversy that had surrounded the Rockefeller name only 30 years forth John D jr. has created this remarkable family these five boisterous boys and all of them we great promise but there is a kind of peril and he sees it early on and that is that they can undo with careless gestures the work it has taken him 30 or 40 years to complete babs seemed to reject the family's mission of public service her brother Nelson was about to take it in a whole new direction in 1958 Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller ran for governor of New York the office from which Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt had propelled themselves into the presidency of the United States for a family that had repeatedly been hurt by public criticism it was a step fraught with peril my great grandfather was attacked by journalists so in that sense this was a dangerous unpredictable world out there and the best thing to do was stay away from it not provoke it I think Nelson's own very extrovert personality and then going into politics brought the family more into the public eye than they'd ever been really comfortable with before and created some tension in the family because if one person goes public to that extent in a certain sense they bring everybody else with them the brothers put aside their apprehensions and back Nelson's entry into politics the brothers all collaborate in his first political campaign they all contribute John D the third is a little reluctant but you know who is he really he's the bypassed first son you know what how can he prescribe policy for this for this generation so there's a sense that they had come so far why not go the extra step which is the step that leads him to the White House in his race for the Republican nomination for governor Nelson Rockefeller ran against a conservative Walter Mahoney I remember only saying to me the one thing I cannot gauge is the effect of big wealth when it is brought to bear and he was right on the mark when he said that because we found out New York 60 plus counties practically all of them in practically all of them the county chairman was either the president of the local bank or the lawyer for the president of the local bank and all of the local banks had affiliations with Chase Manhattan and there was just no stopping the Republican nominee would go on to oppose the incumbent Democratic governor Averill Harriman the patrician heir to one of the nation's largest railroad fortunes Harriman could match Nelson Rockefellers resources but not his personality I got a wonderful visa to laugh after they got all the pictures in there I said well what I come in was to get the salami not the picture so I had to finish my fridges the chef and the cop gave me some malicious food to eat [Music] he discovered that he thoroughly enjoyed politics being out in the hustings with people love to give and take dialogue with people on the street and you know in restaurants and all sorts of different situations the people reacting to him would start the adrenaline flowing and the big grin would come out and he would start slapping the backs and pumping the flesh and giving people his trademark hiya fella and he would clearly enjoy it as the 1958 gubernatorial campaign wound down Rockefeller had traveled 8,500 miles delivered more than 100 speeches and spent as much as four million dollars more than any candidate running for state office ever had for john d rockefeller jr. now a frail 84 years old Nelson's victory was the vindication of his lifelong mission to redeem the family name the fact that Nelson had been elected was assigned to him that the people of the United States had in fact fully accepted the Rockefellers in spite of the early history of the family Nelson Rockefeller he had gone public he had won the affirmation and the mandate of the people and that meant as much to him personally as it did politically [Music] on May 7 1968 aged 86 john d rockefeller jr. died during his winter stay in tucson arizona the funeral was held in New York City at the Riverside Church the Gothic cathedral jr. had built by the time of his death jr. who had given away more than half a billion dollars was regarded as one of the world's foremost philanthropists to his children and 22 grandchildren he was leaving an invaluable inheritance the name which stood not for corporate greed but for the well-being of mankind Nelson rushed to fill the void his father's death had created less than a year after juniors death he moved into Concord the mansion Pocantico Hills his father had built for his grandfather the many modern sculptures he added to his father's classical statuary and imposed on his grandfather's stately landscapes underscored that he was the new Lord of Concord in November 1962 Nelson Rockefeller was re-elected governor of New York in a landslide the popular governor of the nation's most populous state Nelson had a golden opportunity to gain the Republican nomination for president as the 1964 presidential elections approached opinion polls showed Rockefeller holding a commanding 17 point lead over his closest rival the Republican senator from Arizona Barry Goldwater most observers regarded Nelson's nomination for the presidency in 1964 a foregone conclusion [Music] then in the months before the Republican primaries there was talk of a woman in Rockefellers life the marriage took place in Pocantico on May 4th 1963 the bride was margarita happy Murphy recently divorced and the mother of four children Loren's hosted the way neither nelson's children nor his other siblings attended earlier in the week Winthrop had come all the way from Arkansas to try to dissuade Nelson from marrying that very weekend John D the third entertained Nelson's ex-wife Todd at his home in Williamsburg I think it would be inaccurate to say that it didn't create problems for him both politically and within the family I think his political career started to come to an end at the time of his divorce and remarriage [Music] Nelson at this point really knows no bounds he is you know he is writing the up drafts of this amazing thing that has happened with the family in the post-war era and figures you know he can have it all these were much more conservative times socially in this country he was one that this was a very perilous thing for him to do in light of his still burning about political ambitions he went ahead with it anyway for weeks the Rockefeller name was splashed across the national press nelson was called a homewrecker his new wife was accused of abandoning her young children by late May his lead over Goldwater had vanished only weeks early have been certain of Nelson's nomination now said his chances were worth little more than a point [Applause] on July 16th at the San Francisco calculus Barry Goldwater was nominated in the first ballot [Applause] Nelson Rockefeller was given five minutes to address the convention the mostly hostile crowd Governor Nelson Rockefeller addressed that day was no longer his Republican Party probably for the first time in any significant number in a Republican convention was a strong conservative populist a force of people what today I think we would identify at least in part as the Christian Coalition against publican party [Music] [Applause] no matter how long and hard they jeered and shouted he kept watching his his time and he said I'll stay here until I get my five minutes the five minutes endured for fifteen minutes that was a shining moment Nelson Rockefeller standing up courageously taking the hoots and hollers of the crowd and refusing to bend [Music] Nelson Rockefeller returned home to [ __ ] it surrounded by his beloved art collection and the affection of his new family he settled down to the business of running the state of New York spending taxpayers money as freely as if it were his own he embarked on a massive building spree which would transform the Empire State miles and miles of highways hundreds of water treatment plants 50 new state parks like nothing better than to see the dirt fly that's why he built this huge university system he both the new capital known today as the Nelson a Rockefeller Empire State Plaza here was something tangible that you could put your hands on that you could see that would long outlast his own life as rockefeller became absorbed in remaking New York State his presidential virus seemed to be in remission I believe rocky when he says he's lost his presidential ambition journalist Bill Moyers commented I also believe he remembers where he put it 1960 Nelson Rockefeller went to Miami Beach to seek the Republican nomination for the third time his dream of reaching the White House effectively came to it was mathematically impossible it was in the cards it was in the stars that he wasn't going to get elected president or nominated to be President because he was not he was a Republican and he was the wrong kind of Republican III don't mean to be uncharitable about that but that's just that's just the way it was the end of Nelson's presidential hopes denied the grandchildren of john d rockefeller the final prize in their ascent to the pinnacle of American society but as they gathered in New York to be honored for their commitment to philanthropy the Rockefeller Brothers remained at the center of American Life from real estate in Manhattan to fishing docks in Venezuela their holdings were vast and diverse but a time when America was growing suspicious of wealth and power the brothers had achieved a dangerous visibility [Music] John D the third was a valued expert on Asian affairs Lawrence was a leader in the field of conservation David now president of the Chase Manhattan Bank was an ambassador for world capitalism even Winthrop had become a public figure in 1966 he had been elected governor of Arkansas the first republican in 100 years the success of Winrock farms his commitment to Arkansas development and his name had made him an irresistible candidate in the poor southern state [Applause] you surely with the common touch his son the odd man out in the family his election as governor meant much more than a political victory [Music] babs - would have made her father proud waiting until juniors death to join her brothers as a philanthropist she had become deeply involved in the sloan-kettering Cancer Center and in 1971 she donated Green acre park a pastoral retreat in mid Manhattan all five brothers attended the parks dedication the last time they would all be together in public [Music] in February 1973 the Rockefeller family gathered at Petit Jean mountain in Arkansas for the funeral of Winthrop who died of cancer at age 61 [Music] my memory goes back over the years when we would show them the games the chores the roughhousers the fights a United Family Winthrop was the first Rockefeller in the third generation to pass away Babs would die three years later also of cancer their deaths signaled the beginning of a painful transition to a new generation simply accept their role as being Rockefellers most of us went into our 20s in the 1960s so we were caught up in a social environment that involved the civil rights movement and if you took seriously these social movements which all of us did because we in a sense had been brought up to be morally concerned socially concerned then you had to question the history of the family in your own identity remarkable number of them want to change their family's name they want to not be Rockefellers anymore they want to in the case of the of the young women of the fourth generation they want to take their mother's maiden name they want to give away the money they want to go live on our reservation they want to go live in a boxcar someplace they want out what out of that family it was the radical student left days and in many ways the name Rockefeller symbolized the establishment and what the student movement was about was anti-establishment there's no question that I felt the tension of being involved in a movement which was using my family name as a symbol and yet that was my name I mean I couldn't but create tension within me it did it was Nelson Rockefeller who turned left-wing animosity toward the family into rage in September 1971 he ordered 1,000 New York State Troopers into the Attica state prison to put down an inmate revolt for four anxious days the nation was transfixed by images of thirteen hundred inmates barricaded inside Attica and the 38 prison guards they held hostage the inmates demanded better living conditions and a general amnesty for the take a look on the fifth day of the siege they rejected a last appeal and threatened to kill the hostages the governor who had monitored the crisis from his home it was the bloodiest prison takeover in American history police and prison security gunfire killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages in less than six minutes Nelson Rockefeller the man who ordered the prison retaken was held to come not since john d rockefeller jr. was called a murderer after the Ludlow massacre in 1914 and a Rockefeller faced so much hostile I have decided not to seek a fifth term as governor of New York I will resign next Tuesday after 15 years of service to the people of the state on December 11th 1973 Nelson Rockefeller weary of controversy retreated from public life the following summer as he vacationed in Maine former governor received a telephone call that would drag the Rockefellers back into the glare of public scrutiny it was August 17th 1974 two weeks since President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace in the wake of Watergate the new President Gerald Ford asked Nelson Rockefeller to be his vice president the last thing that Nelson Rockefeller ever wanted to be was a vice president of anything to be standby equipment he was not temperamentally suited for it he was a man who wanted to be in charge the country was in the midst of a crisis and how could you say no when your president turns to you but there was a more practical reason as well he had behind him three failed bids as a candidate for his party's presidential nomination and this was the last game in town for him this was the last card he could play Nelson arrived in Washington eager to begin his new job he expected his confirmation hearings to be a mere formality they were not public office under six presidents I've been elected four times and served for 15 years as the governor of the state of New York I think the record speaks for itself initially the hearings focused on Nelson Rockefeller back taxes own personal gifts to associates and friends and a covert operation where Lawrence financed a book critical of one of Nelson's political opponents but far and away the issue that most interested Congress was Nelson Rockefellers as a member of what was thought to be America's wealthiest family it's really a relationship between money and power how far do we trust individuals with great financial resources with the governance of a Democratic Society there's been this notion of Rockefeller power that has been bandied about by the new left and over five words a 10-year period to the degree that has kind of penetrated in some sense popular culture and so when he comes finally for his crucial moment for his interrogation there's a sense okay we're gonna get a chance to see this power at last this power that's been hidden for two generations now and the power and the form of money the committee asked Nelson to disclose not only his own finances but those of the entire family and I said look governor this is a major invasion of privacy this is the occasion if you want out of this process this is the event that I think you can say you can take this job and you know what you can do with it and I said this is this is the time to he looked at me and he said no he said he said I'm gonna go through with this naked through the streets of Coventry wrote the New York Times have the inhabitants of any town itch to see something hidden as people here now desire to see the extent of the Rockefeller fortune the speculation was rampant estimates of the Rockefellers financial holdings ranged from 5 million to 60 million dollars vice-presidential exploded the myth of the Rockefellers as a family of enormous wealth their combined worth was revealed to be 1.3 billion dollars far below the most conservative estimates yet as one observer noted the point was not that they lacked power but that their power lay elsewhere in their connections in business politics and world affairs and the mystique of the Rockefeller name the vice president has made of the United States on December 19th 1974 Nelson Rockefeller was sworn in for a job he once dismissed as standby equipment he paid a huge price some of the brothers were concerned that Nelson had brought publicity to the family that was not necessary that questioning them the motives and impugning the integrity of family members and its institutions was simply wrong and that he had sacrificed the good name of these institutions and their reputation for his own political career Belson's tenure was frustrating and short-lived in november 1975 as Gerald Ford prepared to campaign for president he dropped Nelson Rockefeller from the ticket under pressure from the Republican right wing and you get upset [Music] he went back home to New York never gave another dime to the Republican Party never made another speech on behalf of anybody in the party his turning his back on public life to me seemed to mark a real change of direction it had meant so much to him before [Music] in his retirement Nelson Rockefeller reminded his speechwriter of the old king a painting by French master George woowoo the eyes bear slits the chin firmly set in an ancient defiance as a remote as a lost planet in Nelson's case a prince who had grown old and who had never inherited the kingdom [Music] Nelson Rockefeller returned to the family offices expecting yet again to take the reins of the Rockefeller family the brothers had always stepped aside for Nelson but this time John D the third the bypassed older brother the one most disturbed by the way Nelson's ambition had exposed the family finally stood up to retake his dynastic place they had had a number of arguments in brothers meetings John said that you told me a long time ago that there were two things that you wanted to above all things you wanted to be President of the United States and you wanted to be the leader of the Rockefeller family you have failed in your first objective and if you don't mend your ways you will fail and your second objective and by the summer of 1977 John and Nelson we're not talking to one another John D the third and Nelson never had an opportunity to reconcile John died in a car accident near his home in Pocantico in July 1978 his brother Nelson survived him by only six months Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was buried at the northwest corner of Pocantico near the golf course where john d rockefeller the founder of Standard Oil and the maker of the great fortune who played [Music] the gardens jr. the philanthropist - we need the family name and cherished the sculptures that Nelson himself the third and final Lord of Cocoon had so boldly placed [Music] for a century the Rockefellers occupied a unique place as one of America's most influential and controversial families three generations had left their mark on history it would fall to a fourth to find a way forward why do we want to preserve this part why do we want to devote our lives to maintaining all these institutions that have been created by the family we came to realize that the real problem is the integration of power and goodness and that if the family was going to continue to work together philanthropic commitments and values would be at the center everyone recognizes that not anyone and even not all of us can do everything obviously but I think each of us has a drive to contribute in some way to that mission it's a family which is very much trying to continue some traditions the same time starting others it remains to be seen how well we do [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Jon Scobie

Views: 3,459,694

Keywords: The, Rockefellers, (Full)

Id: n5xuf9D3sCo

Length: 134min 8sec (8048 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 24 2011