The Books: Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, by Ron Chernow

Daily Book Excerpt: Biography

Next biography on the biography shelf is Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., by Ron Chernow

When history passes its final verdict on John D. Rockefeller, it may well be that his endowment of research will be recognized as a milestone in the progress of the race … Science today owes as much to the rich men of generosity and discernment as the art of the Renaissance owes to the patronage of Popes and Princes. Of these rich men, John D. Rockefeller is the supreme type.

— Winston Churchill, July 8, 1936

I read this giant biography while I was out on Block Island in January of 2010. I had not been able to read at all for the majority of 2009, and getting out to Block Island in the teeth of a snow storm, somehow unpopped the cork. I was able to read again. I couldn’t believe it! I read constantly while I was out there. My friend Allison – who is responsible for introducing me to so so many books, she has amazing taste – had told me all about Titan. She had eaten it up. She loves that era, anyway. And Ron Chernow is a real favorite of mine, based solely on his magnificent Alexander Hamilton biography. Chernow seems to be interested in figures who have been criticized by history – their rash acts or failings taking center stage – and Chernow is interested in filling out the picture. With Hamilton, he did a downright rehabilitation project, which I so appreciated. There had already been a couple of books out about Hamilton that appeared to say, “Now wait just a minute, why is this man still so hated?” But nobody had the writing chops that Ron Chernow had. I appreciated that book so much. Alexander Hamilton is, after all, my dead boyfriend, so I was glad someone was taking up for him. Rockefeller is a similar case. I mean, the man’s name is everywhere. I worked in a building that had his name. We learned about the anti-trust cases in high school, and I took an incredible course in college on the Industrial Revolution. So I didn’t come to Rockefeller totally unaware. However: you know, America right now is very suspicious towards those who are wealthy. That bleeds over into how these moguls and magnates are assessed. They had to be rapacious, evil, awful, blah blah blah. It’s very undergraduate-level thinking. Hostility towards people who have MORE than you is just as dangerous as scorn towards those who have LESS. I realize this is an explosive topic currently, and I would rather not get into it too much, but I will say that the Rockefeller that emerges in Chernow’s pages is very different from the solely rapacious man handed down to us through history.

In his introduction, Chernow discusses the difficulty of writing a biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., oil tycoon of the late 19th and early 20th century, because of the mounds of scholarship already written about him (most of it biased demonizations), and for the mere fact that John D. himself was a “sphinx”, by design. Chernow writes:

Like many moguls of the Gilded Age, Rockefeller was either glorified by partisan biographers, who could see no wrong, or vilified by vitriolic critics, who could see no right. This one-sidedness has been especially harmful in the case of Rockefeller, who was such an implausible blend of sin and sanctity. I have tried to operate in the large space between polemics and apologetics, motivated by the belief that Rockefeller’s life was of a piece and that the pious, Bible-thumping Rockefeller wasn’s simly a cunning facade for the corporate pirate. The religious and acquisitive sides of his nature were intimately related. For this reason, I have stressed his evangelical Baptism as the passkey that unlocks many mysteries of his life.

In this, as in so much else in this great accomplishment, Chernow is successful. I knew very little about Rockefeller the man. I know something about his legacy, but I wasn’t aware of the extent of it. I worked at 30 Rock, but I didn’t know the full story behind it (and that was more his son’s doing than his). I was unaware that the University of Chicago really came into being because of Rockefeller. His philanthropies are vast, all-encompassing, he appears to be everywhere, once you start to look into it, and that was a part of him I did not know about. The book was a revelation in many ways.

Chernow does not burden his book with a partisan outlook. If you are the partisan, and you are convinced that Alexander Hamilton was some kind of devil, then of course you will be dismayed to read that Chernow does not share your view. But his writing does not come off as defensive, it comes off as persuasive. He just has, flat out, thought about it in a deeper way. I am thinking now of Willard Sterne Randall’s biography of Thomas Jefferson (he also wrote one on Hamilton). Randall didn’t just believe that Jefferson did not have sex with Sally Hemings, he is determined to “rescue” Jefferson from all charges that he did, and the book really suffers from it, because it starts to feel like Randall is afraid of something, that there is something he does not want to face. He is a partisan. It seems important to him that ONE thing be true over ANOTHER thing. So no matter what your opinion is, it becomes clear that Randall has a blind spot.

I like the biographer who can deal with all sides of his subject’s personality. Good, bad, ugly, none of it needs to be defended, just do your best to describe and contextualize. The good thing about Chernow’s book on Hamilton was its willingness to see Hamilton’s “bad” side, the side that was busy torching up his own life, that self-destructive streak. He flourished when he was throwing himself into the teeth of his enemies. Chernow does not try to explain this away, or defend it, as though it’s a playground brawl. But he does provide a deeper and more thorough context of Hamilton’s background and influences, so that these actions may come into a clearer light. It’s magnificent. It’s a book that makes you think, because the author himself has thought so deeply, so widely, and he is not afraid of what he might find.

Chernow takes this approach again with John D. I learned a lot reading it, not just about Rockefeller, but about the time in which he lived, the economy, the religious revivals, the post Civil War speculative economic craziness, not to mention the rapacious form capitalism took at that time.

Chernow takes Rockefeller’s Baptist upbringing as the key, the “Rosebud”, to John D. Rockefeller. Those hostile to religion in any form will balk at some of Chernow’s conclusions, I suppose, and there will be those who cannot look past many of Rockefeller’s sneaky (and, frankly, unethical) actions – and will only see his religious fervor as hypocritical (pious with one hand, greedy with anotehr). Chernow, ever the philosopher, does not see it as two separate things. He dovetails them. There is a through-line here, a “key” to a personality. Chernow makes the point that most tycoons of that day, whatever their humble backgrounds, usually “upgraded” to an Anglican Church when they made their wealth, because those churches were for the rich. It was a status symbol to belong to them. Religious feeling was not as important as status, and this was true for most of them.

Not so Rockefeller. He grew up a poor backwoods Baptist, and he kept going to the same Baptist church for 50 years, sometimes bankrolling their entire payroll for a year, or two, so that they could keep going. A jaundiced view of this would also be appropriate, but you would have to make as good a case for your side as Chernow does for his. He analyzes much of the preaching being done at that time in the Baptist church, and how there was felt to be no shame at all in having wealth. But the point of wealth was to give most of it away. If you hold onto it, you will be judged, you will be in a state of sin. Rockefeller, as his millions grew, couldn’t give his money away fast enough, and it’s fascinating, just fascinating, to watch the development of his philanthropies, and how they started out as one thing, ie: promoting his pet causes (spread the Baptist religion, education for blacks, the temperance movement) and ended up another: widespread non-denominational humanist causes, such as medical research, the creation of libraries, etc.

Chernow does not (as many biographers before him) see all of this “do-good” activitity as evidence of Rockefeller’s guilty conscience for some of his business practicies. It is all of a piece with his Baptist upbringing. If you have wealth, give it away.

He writes:

Though generally reserved, Rockefeller developed convivial habits in church that lingered for life, and it bothered him when people marched off right after the Sunday service. “There ought to be something that makes the church homelike,” he insisted. “Friends should be glad to see each other and to greet strangers.” Even in later years, when huge swarms of people congregated at the church door to glimpse the world’s richest man, he would still clasp people’s hands and bask in the glow of familial warmth. The handshake acquired symbolic meaning for him, for it was “the friendly hand extended to the man who doesn’t know that he is wanted [that] brings many a one into the church. This early feeling about handshaking has stayed with me. All my life, I have enjoyed this thing that says: ‘I am your friend.'”

Rockefeller was not ostentatious with his wealth, like so many of his contemporaries. I grew up in Rhode Island. Take a stroll down mansion row in Newport sometime, and take a gander at the “summer cottages” of the Gilded Age, places that practically dwarf Versailles (I had my prom at one of those monstrosities!), to get a look at how these people lived. Rockefeller was not one of them. He tended to buy property and then just move into the house that was already on it, sometimes not even buying new furniture, just taking the house “as is”. Very strange and interesting.

The story of Rockefeller’s father, a virtual con-man, one of those guys who drove around the wild countryside selling “elixirs” that would cure everything from gas to cancer, a polygamist as well, was fascinating! It goes a long way to explain Rockefeller’s lifelong stance as a staunch family man, transparent in his love for his wife. He never sold his father down the river, and did quite a bit of retroactive storytelling, I am sure there was a lot of shame there as well, but much of his early years – the prodigy at the office, the meticulous keeping of personal accounts (which he passed on to his children), the careful choosing of an appropriate wife (pious, gentle, faithful) was certainly a reaction to the crazy-making atmosphere he grew up in, with a long-suffering mother and an absent philandering father.

The story of Standard Oil, and how it came about, is of course well-known, but I did not know that it was in refineries that Rockefeller made his fortune, and, through a perfect storm of current events, the domination of the railroads that really sealed the deal, in terms of his monopoly. These are well-trod-over events, but the book does not feel like a rehashing. It is an honest look at the free-for-all of the time, and how even very early on Rockefeller made enemies, by buying up companies to freeze the rivalry, to make his empire complete. This obviously eventually caught up with Rockefeller, in the great anti-trust cases of the early 20th century, but by that point Rockefeller’s wealth was so diversified, so expansive, that nothing could touch it. Not really.

Chernow is also an insightful psychologist. He looks at the evidence, and makes up his own mind. His only preconceived notion about Rockefeller was that he was a “sphinx”, as mentioned. He didn’t come into the project with a bias either way. He doesn’t take the stance that Rockefeller was misunderstood, and all good, or that he was as bad as everyone said he was. There is hostility towards capitalism itself that can feed into books such as this one, but Chernow, with his lifelong focus on economics (along with this one and the Hamilton masterpiece, he has written books on the “house of Morgan” and the Warburgs) doesn’t look at wealth, and the acquisition of it, as something inherently suspicious. The Rockefeller book is stronger for it. He doesn’t shy away from the controversies in which Rockefeller was embroiled (the key one being the “railroad rebates” situation, which would haunt Rockefeller the rest of his days), and I was amazed, as I read this massive book, that I was able to keep all of it straight in my head. This is to Chernow’s credit. If I can be made to understand the “railroad rebates” situation, then Chernow has done his job.

A fascinating portrait of an American legend, surrounded by controversy and mystery. He was not a forthcoming man, he did not give interviews, he was completely blindsided by the “muckraking” journalism of the early 20th century, and his response was always to maintain his silence. He did not realize that the world had changed, and that transparency would eventually be required of CEOs, as much as possible. He did not understand the growth of a certain kind of business journalist, who expected to be kept informed on business decisions, and would leave no stone unturned trying to find out the truth. Rockefeller kept his “neither confirm nor deny” stance far past the point where it was healthy or good for his business. He was an old man by that point. Keeping his counsel had always worked before, when he dominated his corner of the world. But times changed. The silent sphinx who was literally never seen (was there a secret exit from his house in New York? Why was he never seen going to work? Journalists tormented themselves trying to just “see” the guy) had to accept the fact that in this new environment … he could no longer play the sphinx. It would be his downfall.

As with all good biographies, it is not just about its main subject. It is about the world that created that particular subject. It is a sweeping and detailed examination of post Civil War America, of the importance of double-entry bookkeeping, of the discovery of oil in Western Pennsylvania, of the various speculative booms and how from the start Rockefeller set up his business to be a LONG term venture, not a short term, the development of the mid-West (I always associate Rockefeller with New York City, since his name is so prominent here, but that was just my ignorance – he started in the mid-West, and always considered that his true home), the burgeoning technology of the time, in terms of railroads, oil drills, refineries (not to mention the invention of the automobile, which changed everything), and the economic realities of depressions, recessions, booms, and falls. It does not shy away from some of the horrible consequences of Rockefeller’s actions (the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado being the main one), and it becomes clear that John Sr., in passing the torch to John Jr., had, in many ways, assured that the Rockefeller name would grow and change with the times. John Sr. was incapable of handling the Ludlow situation with the same grace (albeit hard-won) that John Jr. did.

In the final chapters of the book, when Rockefeller is a doddering old man (he was determined to live until he was 100), his progeny take over, and their impact on the legacy of Rockefeller cannot even be counted, although Chernow tries to paint an accurate picture of the sheer scope of their philanthropy.

Titan is a grand accomplishment. I am so glad I read it.

Here is an excerpt.

Excerpt from Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., by Ron Chernow

In April 1874, as befitted the status of this new oil colossus, Standard Oil moved into a new four-story building that Rockefeller and Harkness had erected at 43 Euclid Avenue, east of the Public Square. Behind a heavy stone facade, the two Standard Oil floors were roomy and airy, drawing extra light from a skylight above the central stairway. Every morning at 9:15 sharp, Rockefeller arrived, elegantly attired, with the letter R neatly incised in his black onyx cuff links; for someone from a frugal, rural background, he was unexpectedly fastidious. “Mr. Rockefeller came in with an air of calm dignity,” recalled one clerk. “He was immaculately dressed – he looked as if he had been turned out of a bandbox. He carried and umbrella and his gloves, and wore a high silk hat.” He placed such faith in polished shoes that he provided, free of charge, a shoe-shining kit for each office unit. Tall and pale, with neatly trimmed reddish gold side-whiskers, he had a barber shave him each morning at the same hour. Extremely punctual for all appointments, he said, “A man has no right to occupy another man’s time unnecessarily.”

In his imperturbably style, Rockefeller quietly bid his colleagues good morning, inquired after their health, then vanished into his modest office. Even within the Standard Oil kingdom, his employees found his movements as wraithlike as his most paranoid Titusville antagonists did. As one secretary remarked, “He is sly. I have never seen him enter the building or leave it.” “He’s never there, and yet he’s always there,” echoed an associate. Rockefeller seldom granted appointments to strangers and preferred to be approached in writing. Ever alert against industrial espionage, he never wanted people to know more than was required and warned one colleague, “I would be very careful about putting [someone] into a position where he could learn about our business and be troublesome to us.” Even close associates found him inscrutable and loath to reveal his thoughts. As one wrote, “His long silences, so that we could not locate even his objections, were sometimes baffling.” Schooled in secrecy, he trained his face to be a stony mask so that when underlings brought him telegrams, they couldn’t tell from his expression whether the news was favorable or not.

Rockefeller equated silence with strength: Weak men had loose tongues and blabbed to reporters, while prudent businessmen kept their own counsel. Two of his most cherished maxims were “Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed” and “A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.” Big Bill’s deaf-and-dumb routine curiously prefigured his son’s habit of hearing as much as possible and saying as little as possible to gain a tactical edge. When bargaining, he employed his Midwest taciturnity to effect, throwing people off stride and keeping them guessing. When angry, he tended to grow eerily quiet. He liked to tell how a blustering contractor stormed into his office and launched into a snarling tirade against him while he sat hunched over his writing desk and didn’t look up until the man had exhausted himself. Then, spinning about in his swivel chair, he looked up and coolly asked, “I didn’t catch what you were saying. Would you mind repeating that?”

Much of the time, he was closeted in his office, where he had oil prices chalked on a blackboard. He paced this spartan office, hands laced behind his back. Periodically, he emerged from his lair, mounted a high stool, and studied ledgers, scribbling calculations on pad and paper. (During meetings, he was a restless doodler and note taker.) Frequently, he stared out the window, motionless as an idol, gazing at the sky for fifteen minutes at a stretch. He once asked rhetorically, “Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things … fail because we lack concentration – the art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everything else?”

In the early days, Rockefeller knew the name and face of each employee and occasionally perambulated about the office. He walked with a measured gait, steady as a metronome, always covering the same distance in the exact same time. He had the soundless movements and modulated voice of an undertaker. Gliding about with silent footfalls, he startled people by materializing at their desks and politely asking, in a mellow voice, to inspect their work. Since he was seldom seen, people often wondered about his whereabouts. “His was the least known face in the offices,” one employee recalled fifty years later, still perplexed about Rockefeller’s daily schedule. “He was reported to inhabit them three hours a day but his appearances and disappearances were curtained, suggested private approaches, withdrawn stairways and corridors.”

As a former bookkeeper, Rockefeller devoted special attention to ledgers. One accountant recalled him stopping by his desk and saying courteously, “Permit me,” then flipping quickly through his books. “Very well kept,” he said, “very, indeed.” Then his eye leaped to a tiny error. “A little error here; will you correct it?” The accountant was flabbergasted by the speed with which Rockefeller had scanned so many dense columns of figures. “And I will take my oath,” he reported, “that it was the only error in the book!”