Jay Rockefeller

Jay Rockefeller

John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937), generally known as Jay Rockefeller, has served as a Democratic U.S. Senator from West Virginia since 1985. He was Governor of West Virginia from 1977 to 1985. As a great-grandson of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, he is the only current politician of the prominent six-generation Rockefeller family and the only Democrat in what has been a traditionally progressive Republican dynasty.

He is related to several prominent Republican supporters and former officeholders: he is a great-grandson of Rhode Island Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, a nephew of banker David Rockefeller and Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and of former U.S. Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller, son-in-law of former Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois, and cousin of Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Winthrop Paul Rockefeller.

Born in New York City to John D. Rockefeller III and Blanchette Ferry Hooker, Jay Rockefeller graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1954. He graduated from Harvard University in 1961 with a B.A. in Far Eastern Languages and History after having spent three years studying Japanese at the International Christian University in Tokyo.

After college, Rockefeller worked for the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C., under John F. Kennedy, where he developed a friendship with Robert Kennedy and worked as an assistant to Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver. He served as the operations director for the Corps' largest overseas program in the Philippines. He continued his public service in 1964–1965 as a VISTA volunteer, under President Lyndon B. Johnson, during which he moved to Emmons, West Virginia.

Rockefeller, along with his son Charles, is a trustee of New York's Asia Society, established by his father in 1956; he is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He voted against the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, which was heavily backed by his uncle, David Rockefeller.

Since 1967, Rockefeller has been married to the former Sharon Percy, the chief executive officer of WETA-TV, the leading PBS station in the Washington, D.C., area, which broadcasts such notable programs as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Washington Week.

Sharon is the daughter of former U.S. Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois, who had an association with the Rockefeller family. They have four children: John D. Rockefeller V ("Jamie"), Valerie, Charles, and Justin. Jamie's wife Emily is the daughter of former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

The Rockefellers reside in Charleston, West Virginia. They also, like other members of the family, have a ranch in the Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Bill Clinton (a friend of Rockefeller's) and his family spent their summer vacation in August, 1995, at the ranch.

He was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1966, and to the office of West Virginia Secretary of State in 1968. He won the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1972, but was defeated in the general election by the Republican incumbent Governor Arch Moore. Rockefeller then served as president of West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1973 to 1976.

Rockefeller was elected Governor of West Virginia in 1976 and re-elected in 1980. He served as Governor when manufacturing plants and coal mines were closing as the national recession of the early 1980s hit West Virginia particularly hard. Between 1982 and 1984, West Virginia's unemployment rate hovered between 15 and 20 percent.

In 1984, he was elected to the United States Senate, narrowly defeating businessman John Raese as Ronald Reagan narrowly carried the state in the presidential election. As in his 1980 gubernatorial campaign against Arch Moore, Rockefeller spent over $12 million to win his Senate seat. To date, this has been the last competitive Senate race in West Virginia. Rockefeller was re-elected in 1990, 1996, 2002 and 2008 by substantial margins. He was chair of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs (1993–1995; January 3 to January 20, 2001, and June 6, 2001–January 3, 2003).

In April 1992, he was the Democratic Party's finance chairman and considered running for the presidency, but pulled out after consulting with friends and advisers. He went on to strongly endorse Clinton as the Democratic candidate.

He was the Chairman of the prominent Senate Intelligence Committee (retiring in January 2009), from which he commented frequently on the war in Iraq. He now serves as a member of the Committee, taking on the role of Chairmanship at the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

In 1993 Rockefeller became the principal Senate supporter, with Ted Kennedy, behind Bill and Hillary Clinton's sweeping health care reform package, liaising closely with the First Lady, even opening up his mansion in Rock Creek Park for its first strategy meeting. The reform was subsequently defeated by an alliance between the Business Roundtable and a small-business coalition.

Rockefeller noted that this was his personal opinion, and that he was not privy to any confidential information indicating that such action was planned. On October 11 of that year, he was one of 77 Senators who voted for the Iraq Resolution authorizing the Iraq invasion.

On February 29, 2008 he endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States, citing Obama's judgment on the Iraq war and national security issues, and calling him the right candidate to lead America during a time of instability at home and abroad. This endorsement stood in stark contrast from the results of the state primary.

Rockefeller has been an outspoken critic of President Bush and the Iraq war in the past years, especially starting in late 2003. As chair of the Intelligence committee, he has indicted the President for his handling of intelligence and war operations. The previous year, however, Rockefeller was very much in line with Bush and those pushing for strong action – military, if necessary – against Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

In July 2007, Senator Rockefeller announced that he planned to introduce legislation before the August Congressional recess that would give the FCC the power to regulate TV violence. According to the July 16, 2007 edition of Broadcasting & Cable, the new law would apply to both broadcast as well as cable and satellite programming. This would mark the first time that the FCC would be given power to regulate such a vast spectrum of content, which would include almost everything except material produced strictly for direct internet use. An aide to the senator said that his staff had also been carefully formulating the bill in such a way that it would be able to pass constitutional scrutiny by the courts.

In 2007, Senator Rockefeller began steering the Senate Intelligence Committee to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies who were accused of unlawfully assisting the National Security Agency (NSA) in monitoring the communications of American citizens (see Hepting v. AT&T).

This was an about-face of sorts for Senator Rockefeller, who had hand-written a letter to Vice President Cheney in 2003 expressing his concerns about the legality of NSA's warrantless wire-tapping program. Some have attributed this change of heart to the spike in contributions from telecommunications companies to the senator just as these companies began lobbying Congress to protect them from lawsuits regarding their cooperation with the NSA.

Between 2001 and the start of this lobbying effort, AT&T employees had contributed $300 to the senator.. After the lobbying effort began, AT&T employees and executives donated $19,350 in 3 months. The senator has pledged not to rely on his vast fortune to fund his campaigns, and the AT&T contributions represent about 2% of the money he raised during the previous year.

On September 28, 2006, Rockefeller voted with a largely Republican majority to suspend habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an "unlawful combatant," barring them from challenging their detentions in court. Rockefeller's vote gave a retroactive, nine-year immunity to U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed acts of torture and abuse, permitting the use of statements obtained through torture to be used in military tribunals so long as the abuse took place by December 30, 2005. Rockefeller's vote authorized the President to establish permissible interrogation techniques and to "interpret the meaning and application" of international Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion fell short of "serious" bodily or psychological injury. The bill became law on October 17, 2006.

The McCain campaign called for an apology from Senator Rockefeller and for Barack Obama, whom Rockefeller has endorsed, to denounce the comment. Rockefeller later apologized for the comment and the Obama campaign issued a statement expressing Obama's disagreement with the comment. Senator Lindsay Graham (R) of South Carolina noted that "John didn't drop bombs from 35,000 feet....the bombs were not laser guided (in the 1960 and 1970s)".

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Rockefeller family

The Rockefeller family, the renowned Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) ("Senior") and his brother William Rockefeller (1841-1922), is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German American origin that made the world's largest private fortune in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th century, primarily through the Standard Oil Company. The family is also known for its long association with and financial interest in the Chase Manhattan Bank, now JP Morgan Chase.

The name is an anglicized version of the German Rokkenfelder or Rockenfeller, meaning from Rockenfeld. The Rockefellers' origin can be explicitly traced back to the villages of Ehlscheid, Segendorf and Fahr (all suburbanised to Neuwied, Rhineland-Palatinate). These are neighbored to the small settlement of Rockenfeld - part of Neuwied's quarter Feldkirchen. In Germany, Rockenfeller is known as a family name.

Family records in parish registers reach back to the end of the Thirty Years' War. The earliest known ancestors (direct line) are Goddard Rockenfeller (*ca. 1590) Johann Wilhem Rockenfeller(*ca. 1628,†1702) and Johannes Rockenfeller (*ca. 1634,†1684). Johann Peter (*1682), son of Johannes, moved in 1723 to Ringoes, New Jersey. Johann Thiel (*1695), grandson of Johann Wilhelm, immigrated in 1735 to Germantown, New York. William Avery Rockefeller was looking for a noble descent and a possible connection to a French Huguenot family de Roquefeullie was discussed. However, this is unlikely because the name Rockenfeld is recorded in the region long before the Huguenots fled France (1685).

Johann Peter's grandson, William, married a distant relative, Christina, the granddaughter of a cousin of Johann Peter. This marriage produced a son, Godfrey, who married Lucy Avery in 1806. Avery's ancestors were part of the Puritan tide from Devon, England to Massachusetts around 1630. Lucy Avery could justly claim descent from Edmund Ironside, the English king, crowned in 1016.

Godfrey and Lucy eventually shifted to the remote, backwater stagecoach stop of Richford, in the western part of New York State. Their son, William Avery Rockefeller (1810–1906) was a trader in salt and timber who adopted a vagabond life as a confidence man and was known as "Big Bill", who sired two illegitimate children with his housekeeper. He married up, to Eliza Davison in 1837; her father, John Davison, was relatively rich for the time. Their second child was John Davison Rockefeller, and their third William Rockefeller.

The Rockefellers eventually settled near Cleveland, Ohio, where they would develop into the world-renowned family empire they are today. It was in Cleveland where John D. Sr. would amass his great fortune through Standard Oil which he formed with his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner Stephen V. Harkness., and where he would later be buried at Lake View Cemetery. In the generations since, however, the Rockefeller family has largely migrated to New York City, although many descendants remain in Cleveland or have since spread out across the country (e.g. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia). The family business headquarters is now located in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza.

The members of the Rockefeller family are noted for their philanthropy; a Rockefeller Archive Center study in 2004 documents an incomplete list of 72 major institutions that the family has created and/or endowed up to the present day. Historically, the major focus of their benefactions have been in the educational, health and conservation areas.

Family leaders in both philanthropy and business have included John D. Sr., John D. Jr. ("Junior"), John D. III, Laurance Rockefeller and David Rockefeller, who is the family's current patriarch. Several family members have held high public office, including Vice President of the United States (Nelson Rockefeller), United States Senator (Jay Rockefeller), state Governor (Nelson, Jay, and Winthrop Rockefeller), and Lieutenant Governor (Winthrop Paul Rockefeller). Another noted family member was Michael Rockefeller, son of Nelson, an anthropologist who came to media attention after he was presumed killed in New Guinea in 1961.

The corporate, financial and personal affairs of the family - numbering around 150 blood relatives of John D. Rockefeller - are run from the family office, Room 5600, known officially as "Rockefeller Family and Associates". It comprises three floors of the GE Building in Rockefeller Center; all private family legal matters are handled by the family-associated New York law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Room 5600 is also the base of the current family historian, Peter J. Johnson, who assisted with David Rockefeller's Memoirs, published in 2002.

To distinguish the generations and facilitate communication, the fourth generation is generically known as "The Cousins" (24 in all, with 21 still living) and the younger family members are known as the "Fifth/Sixth" generation. Many if not all of these family members are involved in institutionalised philanthropic pursuits. Family links are solidified through the practice of ritualised family meetings - which started with the regular "brothers' meetings" held in Room 5600 or in their respective private residences, beginning in 1945. Family get-togethers are held today at the "Playhouse", in the Westchester County family estate of Pocantico, in June (the "cousins weekend") and December of each year (see Kykuit).

In addition to this is Senior and Junior's involvement in seven major housing developments: Forest Hill Estates in Cleveland, Ohio; the City Housing Corporation's efforts at Sunnyside Gardens in Queens (NY); Thomas Garden Apartments in the Bronx (NY); Paul Lawrence Dunbar Housing in Harlem; Lavoisier Apartments in Manhattan (NY); Van Tassel Apartments in Sleepy Hollow (formerly North Tarrytown), New York; and a development in Radburn, New Jersey. A further project involved David Rockefeller in a major middle-income housing development when he was elected in 1947 as chairman of Morningside Heights Inc. in Manhattan by fourteen major institutions that were based in the area, including Columbia University. The result, in 1951, was the six-building apartment complex known as Morningside Gardens.

Senior's donations led to the formation of the University of Chicago in 1889, where the first American Nobel Prize in science was produced in 1907, and notable for the Chicago School of Economics. This was one instance of a long family and Rockefeller Foundation tradition of financially supporting Ivy League and other major colleges and universities over the generations - seventy-five in total. This includes Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Stanford University, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University, Brown University, Columbia University, and Cornell University. This financial assistance extends overseas to institutions such as London School of Economics and University College London, among many others.

Senior (and Junior) also created the Rockefeller University in 1901; the General Education Board in 1902, which later (1923) evolved into the International Education Board; the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1910; the Bureau of Social Hygiene in 1913 (Junior); the International Health Commission in 1913; and the China Medical Board in 1915.

In the 1920s, the International Education Board granted important fellowships to pathbreakers in modern mathematics, such as Stefan Banach, Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, and André Weil, which was a formative part of the gradual shift of world mathematics to the US over this period. To help promote cooperation between physics and mathematics Rockefeller funds also supported the erection of the new Mathematical Institute at the University of Göttingen between 1926 and 1929, while the rise of probability and mathematical statistics owes much to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris by American philanthropy also around this time.

Junior also financially supported numerous other major institutions, notable among them his ongoing support for the highly influential foreign policy think tank, the New York Council on Foreign Relations, established in 1921. In 1978 the Rockefeller Foundation initiated the founding of the financial advisory council called the Group of Thirty, as well as many grants to a myriad of universities, think tanks and other institutions.

Junior was also responsible for the creation and endowment of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates the restored historical town at Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the most extensive historic restorations ever undertaken.

Beginning with Rockefeller Senior, the family has been a major force in land conservation. Over the generations, it has created more than 20 national parks and open spaces, including the Cloisters, Acadia National Park, Forest Hill Park, the Nature Conservancy, and Grand Teton National Park, amongst many others. Rockefeller Jr, and his son Laurance (and his son Larry) were particularly prominent in this area. Most of these efforts were accomplished without public fanfare.

The family was honored for its conservation efforts in November, 2005, by the National Audubon Society, one of America's largest and oldest conservation organizations, at which over 30 family members attended. At the event, the society's president, John Flicker, notably stated: "Cumulatively, no other family in America has made the contribution to conservation that the Rockefeller family has made".

The Rockefeller Archive Center, an independent foundation that was until 2008 a division of Rockefeller University, is a vast three-story underground bunker built below the Martha Baird Rockefeller Hillcrest mansion on the family estate at Pocantico (see Kykuit). Along forty-foot-long walls of shelves on rails, patrolled by ten full-time archivists, is the entire repository of personal and official papers and correspondence of the complete family and its members, along with historical papers of its numerous foundations, as well as other non-family philanthropic institutions. These include: the Commonwealth Fund, Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust, and the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation.

In total, it holds over 70 million pages of documents and contains the collections of forty-two scientific, cultural, educational and philanthropic organizations.

Only the expurgated records of deceased family members are publicly available to scholars and researchers; all records pertaining to living members are closed to historians. As Nelson Rockefeller's researcher, Cary Reich, discovered however, in the case of Nelson's voluminous 3,247 cubic feet (91.9 m3) of papers, about only one third of these files had been processed (that is, each page vetted by the archivists) and released to researchers up to 1996. He reports that it will be many years before all the papers will be open to the public, despite Nelson having died in 1979.

The Center maintains that this repository of records, covering 140-plus years of the records of the family, in addition to non-Rockefeller philanthropic collections, gives unique insights into United States and world issues and social developments in both the 19th and 20th centuries.

The combined wealth of the family – its total assets and investments plus the individual wealth of its members – has never been known with any precision. In 1992, family members estimated it to be between US$5 billion to $10 billion. The records of the family archives relating to both the family and individual members' net worth is closed to researchers. Independent researchers have valued the assets of the Rockefeller family much higher, some approaching amounts as high as $110 billion.

From the outset, and even today, the family wealth has been under the complete control of the male members of the dynasty, through the family office. Despite strong-willed wives who had influence over their husbands' decisions – such as the pivotal female figure Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, wife of Junior – in all cases they received allowances only and were never given even partial responsibility for the family fortune.

Much of the wealth has been locked up in the notable family trust of 1934 (which holds the bulk of the fortune and matures on the death of the fourth generation), and the trust of 1952, both administered by the Chase Manhattan Bank. These trusts have consisted of shares in the successor companies to Standard Oil and other diversified investments, as well as the family's considerable real estate holdings. They are administered by a powerful trust committee that oversees the fortune. It has consisted over time of high-profile individuals, which have included Paul Volcker, William G. Bowen (former president of Princeton University) and John C. Whitehead (retired co-chairman of Goldman Sachs).

Management of this fortune today also rests with professional money managers who oversee the principal holding company, Rockefeller Financial Services, which controls all the family's investments, now that Rockefeller Center is no longer owned by the family. The present chairman is David Rockefeller, Jr.

Through the Rockefeller family's involvement in many aspect of the United States history, such as,the economy, politics, religion, and banks, many people see them as heroic, noble, humble, generous, unselfish, and genuine. Although many have a different view of the Rockefeller family, one that is dark. Many view the Rockefeller family as apathetic, ruthless, and to a degree Narcissistic in the sense that they did what they needed for themselves so that they could flourish and prosper.

A trademark of the dynasty over its 140-plus years has been the remarkable unity it has maintained, despite major divisions that developed in the late 1970s, and unlike other wealthy families such as the DuPonts and the Mellons. A primary reason has been the lifelong efforts of "Junior" to not only cleanse the name from the opprobrium stemming from the ruthless practices of Standard Oil, but his tireless efforts to forge family unity even as he allowed his five sons to operate independently. This was partly achieved by regular brothers and family meetings, but it was also because of the high value placed on family unity by first Nelson and John 3rd, and later especially with David.

As far as wealth is concerned, John D. Rockefeller denied ever being worth $10,000,000,000. However, on September 29, 1916 (notably years after the break-up of his Standard Oil empire by the Supreme Court in 1911), he officially passed that mark and became the richest man who has ever lived, surpassing Carnegie's by far.

He gave away more than half that amount over his lifetime, US$540 million (in dollar terms of that time), and became the greatest lay benefactor of medicine in history. His son, "Junior" also gave away over $537 million over his lifetime, bringing the total philanthropy of just two generations of the family to over $1 billion from 1860 to 1960. Added to this, the New York Times declared in a report in November, 2006 that David Rockefeller's total charitable benefactions amount to about $900 million over his lifetime.

The combined personal and social connections of the various family members are vast, both in America and throughout the world, including the most powerful politicians, royalty, public figures, and chief businessmen. Notable figures through Standard Oil alone have included Henry Flagler and Henry H. Rogers. Contemporary figures include Henry Kissinger, Nelson Mandela, Richard Parsons (Chairman and CEO of Time Warner), C. Fred Bergsten, Peter G. Peterson (Senior Chairman of the Blackstone Group), and Paul Volcker.

John D Junior, through his son Nelson, purchased and then donated the land upon which sits the UN headquarters, in New York, in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, he had also donated a substantial amount towards the restoration and rehabilitation of major buildings in France after World War I, such as the Rheims Cathedral, the Fontainebleau Palace and the Palace of Versailles, for which he was later (1936) awarded France's highest decoration, the Grand Croix of the Legion d'Honneur (subsequently also awarded decades later to his son, David Rockefeller).

He also funded the notable excavations at Luxor in Egypt, as well as establishing a Classical Studies School in Athens. In addition, he provided the funding for the construction of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem - the Rockefeller Museum.

For all of the above reasons, the family and its far reaching philanthropy, and its oil, real estate, banking, and international institutions is still considered today to be America's greatest family. It is also a benchmark for extreme wealth ("as rich as Rockefeller"), as "Senior" is still regarded as the wealthiest man who has ever lived, worth over $300 billion in today's figures, easily surpassing Bill Gates, in terms adjusted by inflation indexing.

To the sixth-generation, with 21 still living in the fourth (the Cousins). The total number of blood relative descendants as of 2006 is about 150.

An article in the New York Times in 1937 stated that William Rockefeller had, at that time, exactly 28 great-grandchildren.

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John D. Rockefeller

John Davison Rockefeller (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company and ran it until he officially retired in 1897. Standard Oil began as an Ohio partnership formed by John D. Rockefeller, his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner Stephen V. Harkness. Rockefeller kept his stock and as gasoline grew in importance, his wealth soared and he became the world's richest man and first American billionaire, and is often regarded as the richest person in history.

Standard Oil was convicted in Federal Court of monopolistic practices and broken up in 1911. Rockefeller spent the last 40 years of his life in retirement. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy with foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research.

His foundations pioneered the development of medical research, and were instrumental in the eradication of hookworm and yellow fever. He is also the founder of both The University of Chicago and Rockefeller University. He was a devoted Northern Baptist and supported many church-based institutions throughout his life. Rockefeller adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life.

He married Laura Celestia ("Cettie") Spelman in 1864. They had four daughters and one son; John D. Rockefeller, Jr. "Junior" was largely entrusted with the supervision of the foundations.

Rockefeller was the second of six children born in Richford, New York, to William Avery Rockefeller (November 13, 1810–May 11, 1906) and Eliza Davison (September 12, 1813–March 28, 1889). Genealogists trace his roots back to French Huguenots who later fled to Germany in the 1600s. His father, a traveling salesman who the locals referred to as "Big Bill", was a sworn foe of conventional morality who had opted for a vagabond existence. Throughout his life, William Avery Rockefeller expended considerable energy on tricks and schemes to avoid plain hard work. Eliza, a homemaker and devout Baptist, struggled to maintain a semblance of stability at home as William was frequently gone for extended periods. Young John D. Rockefeller's contemporaries described him as articulate, methodical, and discreet.

When he was a boy, his family moved to Moravia, New York and, in 1851, to Owego, New York, where he attended Owego Academy. In 1853, his family bought a house in Strongsville, a town close to Cleveland. In September 1855, when Rockefeller was 16 he got his first job as an assistant bookkeeper. Working for a small produce commission firm called "Hewitt & Tuttle", the full salary for his first three months' work was $50. At that time he promised when he retired he would give one tenth of his money to charity.

In 1859, Rockefeller went into the produce commission business with a partner, Maurice B. Clark. Their firm, Clark & Rockefeller, built an oil refinery in 1863 in "The Flats", then Cleveland's burgeoning industrial area. The refinery was directly owned by Andrews, Clark & Company, which was composed of Clark & Rockefeller, chemist Samuel Andrews, and M. B. Clark's two brothers. In February 1865, in what was later described by oil industry historian Daniel Yergin as a "critical" auction, Rockefeller bought out the Clark brothers for $72,500, and established the firm of Rockefeller & Andrews.

In 1866, John D. Rockefeller's brother, William, built another refinery in Cleveland and he was brought into the partnership. In 1867, Henry M. Flagler became a partner, and the firm of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was established. By 1868, with Rockefeller borrowing heavily and reinvesting most of the profits while controlling cost and utilizing his refineries' waste, the company owned two Cleveland refineries and a marketing subsidiary in New York, and it was the largest oil refiner in the world. Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler was the predecessor of the Standard Oil Company.

By the end of the Civil War, Cleveland was one of the five main refining centers in the U.S. (besides Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and the region in northwestern Pennsylvania where most of the oil originated). In January 1870, Rockefeller formed Standard Oil of Ohio, which rapidly became the most profitable refiner in Ohio. When it was found that at least part of Standard Oil's cost advantage came from secret rebates from the railroads bringing oil into Cleveland, the competing refiners insisted on getting similar rebates, and the railroads quickly complied. By then, however, Standard Oil had grown to become one of the largest shippers of oil and kerosene in the country.

The railroads were fighting fiercely for traffic and, in an attempt to create a cartel to control freight rates, formed the South Improvement Company. Rockefeller agreed to support this cartel if they gave him preferential treatment as a high-volume shipper, which included not just steep rebates for his product, but also rebates for the shipment of competing products. Part of this scheme was the announcement of sharply increased freight charges. This touched off a firestorm of protest, which eventually led to the discovery of Standard Oil's part of the deal. A major New York refiner, Charles Pratt and Company, headed by Charles Pratt and Henry H. Rogers, led the opposition to this plan, and railroads soon backed off.

Undeterred, Rockefeller continued with his self-reinforcing cycle of buying competing refiners, improving the efficiency of his operations, pressing for discounts on oil shipments, undercutting his competition, and buying them out. In less than two months in 1872, in what was later known as "The Cleveland Conquest", Standard Oil had absorbed 22 of its 26 Cleveland competitors. Eventually, even his former antagonists, Pratt and Rogers, saw the futility of continuing to compete against Standard Oil: in 1874, they made a secret agreement with their old nemesis to be acquired. Pratt and Rogers became Rockefeller's partners. Rogers, in particular, became one of Rockefeller's key men in the formation of the Standard Oil Trust. Pratt's son, Charles Millard Pratt became Secretary of Standard Oil.

For many of his competitors, Rockefeller had merely to show them his books so they could see what they were up against, then make them a decent offer. If they refused his offer, he told them he would run them into bankruptcy, then cheaply buy up their assets at auction.

Standard Oil gradually gained almost complete control of oil refining and marketing in the United States through horizontal integration. At that time, many legislatures had made it difficult to incorporate in one state and operate in another. As a result, Rockefeller and his associates owned separate corporations across dozens of states, making their management of the whole enterprise rather unwieldy. In 1882, Rockefeller's lawyers created an innovative form of corporation to centralize their holdings, giving birth to the Standard Oil Trust. The "trust" was a corporation of corporations, and the entity's size and wealth drew much attention. Despite improving the quality and availability of kerosene products while greatly reducing their cost to the public (the price of kerosene dropped by nearly 80% over the life of the company), Standard Oil's business practices created intense controversy. The firm was attacked by journalists and politicians throughout its existence, in part for its monopolistic practices, giving momentum to the anti-trust movement.

Ohio was especially vigorous in applying its state anti-trust laws, and finally forced a separation of Standard Oil of Ohio from the rest of the company in 1892, leading to the dissolution of the trust. Rockefeller continued to consolidate his oil interests as best as he could until New Jersey, in 1909, changed its incorporation laws to effectively allow a re-creation of the trust in the form of a single holding company. At its peak, Standard Oil had about 90% of the market for kerosene products.

By 1896, Rockefeller shed all of his policy involvement in the affairs of Standard Oil; however he retained his nominal title as president until 1911; he kept his stock.

In 1911, the Supreme Court of the United States found Standard Oil Company of New Jersey in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and held that Standard Oil, which by then still had a 64% market share, originated in illegal monopoly practices and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. These included, among many others, Continental Oil, which became Conoco, now part of ConocoPhillips; Standard of Indiana, which became Amoco, now part of BP; Standard of California, which became Chevron; Standard of New Jersey, which became Esso (and later, Exxon), now part of ExxonMobil; Standard of New York, which became Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil; and Standard of Ohio, which became Sohio, now part of BP. Rockefeller, who had rarely sold shares, owned substantial stakes in all of them.

From his very first paycheck, Rockefeller tithed ten percent of his earnings to his church. As his wealth grew, so did his giving, primarily to educational and public health causes, but also for basic science and the arts. He was advised primarily by Frederick T. Gates after 1891, and, after 1897, also by his son.

In 1884, he provided major funding for a college in Atlanta for African-American women that became Spelman College (named for Rockefeller's in-laws who were ardent abolitionists before the Civil War). The oldest existing building on Spelman's campus, Rockefeller Hall, is named after him. Rockefeller also gave considerable donations to Denison University and other Baptist colleges.

Rockefeller gave $80 million to the University of Chicago under William Rainey Harper, turning a small Baptist college into a world-class institution by 1900. His General Education Board, founded in 1902, was established to promote education at all levels everywhere in the country. It was especially active in supporting black schools in the South. Its most dramatic impact came by funding the recommendations of the Flexner Report of 1910, which had been funded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; it revolutionized the study of medicine in the United States. Rockefeller also provided financial support to Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley and Vassar.

Despite his personal preference for homeopathy, Rockefeller, on Gates's advice, became one of the first great benefactors of medical science. In 1901, he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York. It changed its name to Rockefeller University in 1965, after expanding its mission to include graduate education. It claims a connection to 23 Nobel laureates. He founded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1909, an organization that eventually eradicated the hookworm disease that had long plagued the American South. The Rockefeller Foundation was created in 1913 to continue and expand the scope of the work of the Sanitary Commission, which was closed in 1915. He gave nearly $250 million to the foundation, which focused on public health, medical training, and the arts. It endowed Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first of its kind. It built the Peking Union Medical College into a great institution, helped in World War I war relief, and it employed William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada to study industrial relations. Rockefeller's fourth main philanthropy, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, created in 1918, supported work in the social studies; it was later absorbed into the Rockefeller Foundation. However, all told, Rockefeller gave away about $550 million.

Oddly enough, Rockefeller became well known in his later life for the practice of giving dimes to adults and nickels to children wherever he went. He even gave dimes as a playful gesture to men like tire mogul Harvey Firestone.

As a youth, Rockefeller allegedly said that his two great ambitions were to make $100,000 and to live 100 years. Rockefeller died of arteriosclerosis on May 23, 1937, two months shy of his 98th birthday, at the Casements, his home in Ormond Beach, Florida. He was buried in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

Rockefeller had a long and controversial career in the industry followed by a long career in philanthropy. His image is an amalgam of all of these experiences and the many ways he was viewed by his contemporaries. These contemporaries include his former competitors, many of whom were driven to ruin, but many others of whom sold out at a profit (or a profitable stake in Standard Oil, as Rockefeller often offered his shares as payment for a business), and quite a few of whom became very wealthy as managers as well as owners in Standard Oil. They also include politicians and writers, some of whom served Rockefeller's interests, and some of whom built their careers by fighting Rockefeller and the "robber barons".

Notwithstanding these varied aspects of his public life, Rockefeller may ultimately be remembered simply for the raw size of his wealth. In 1902, an audit showed Rockefeller was worth about $200 million—compared to the total national GDP of $101 billion then. His wealth continued to grow significantly (in line with U.S. economic growth) after as the demand for gasoline soared, eventually reaching about $900 million on the eve of WWI, including significant interests in banking, shipping, mining, railroads, and other industries. According to the New York Times obituary, “it was estimated after Mr. Rockefeller retired from business that he had accumulated close to $1,500,000,000 out of the earnings of the Standard Oil trust and out of his other investments. This was probably the greatest amount of wealth that any private citizen had ever been able to accumulate by his own efforts.” By the time of his death in 1937, Rockefeller's remaining fortune, largely tied up in permanent family trusts, was estimated at $1.4 billion. According to some methods of wealth calculation, Rockefeller's net worth over the last decades of his life would easily place him as the wealthiest known person in recent history. As a percentage of the United States' GDP, no other American fortune—including Bill Gates or Sam Walton—would even come close.

The Rockefeller wealth, distributed as it was through a system of foundations and trusts, continued to fund family philanthropic, commercial, and, eventually, political aspirations throughout the 20th century. Grandson David Rockefeller was a leading New York banker, serving for over 20 years as CEO of Chase Manhattan (now part of JPMorgan Chase). Another grandson, Nelson A. Rockefeller, was Republican governor of New York and the 41st Vice President of the United States. A third grandson, Winthrop Rockefeller, served as Republican Governor of Arkansas. Great-grandson, John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV is currently a Democratic Senator from West Virginia and a former governor of West Virginia, and another, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, served ten years as Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas.

John D. Rockefeller rests at Cleveland, Ohio's Lake View Cemetery.

And God was good to me everyday.

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John Raese

John R. Raese (born April 10, 1950, in Baltimore, Maryland) is a West Virginia businessman and has been the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in 1984 and 2006. Both Raese's bids for the Senate were unsuccessful, losing to then-Governor Jay Rockefeller in 1984, and incumbent Robert Byrd in 2006. Raese also sought the GOP nomination for governor in 1988, but lost to incumbent Governor Arch Moore.

Rease is the son of Richard Aubrey "Dyke" Raese, a four-year basketball coach at West Virginia University, and Jane Greer Raese.

Raese graduated from WVU (B.S., 1973). He is president and CEO of Greer Industries, a steel and limestone producer. His business interests also include The Dominion Post of Morgantown, West Virginia, the West Virginia Radio Corporation, which owns 15 radio stations, and the MetroNews radio network serving 56 stations. His businesses employ about 1,000 people.

In 1984 Raese lost the U.S. Senate race to Rockefeller, a sitting two-term Democratic governor, in the general election 52%-48%. Rockefeller's campaign spent $12 million on the election, while Raese's spent $1.2 million. After the Senate race, Raese was elected Chairman of West Virginia's Republican Party. In the 1988 gubernatorial campaign, he lost his primary challenge to Gov. Arch Moore 53%-47%. Gov. Moore later lost in his bid for reelection.

On May 9, 2006, Raese won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate with 58 percent of the vote in a field of six candidates. In radio advertisements aired during the primary race, Raese's campaign replayed a tape of an endorsement from Ronald Reagan made during the 1984 Senate race. In September 2006, when incumbent Robert Byrd suggested in an interview that Raese's late father would have supported him over his son, Raese began airing an ad that featured Byrd's use of the term "white niggers" on a 2001 television news show.. In the November general election Byrd defeated Raese by 64% to 34% of the vote.

The question of the state residency of Raese and his wife was raised during the 2006 primary race. Raese is a legal resident of West Virginia and has a family home in Morgantown that is on the National Register of Historic Places. By all accounts, Raese spends a good deal of time tending to his companies in the state. However, he also lives with his wife Elizabeth (Liz) and two daughters in a house valued at $2.9 million abutting the intercoastal waterway in Palm Beach County, Florida. Mrs. Raese, in a 2002 document filed with the property assessor in Palm Beach County, declared Florida as her permanent, primary home, allowing her to seek and obtain the $25,000 exemption. Several other legal documents list Elizabeth and John Raese as the owners of the property, and Raese's daughters attend school in Florida..

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