Impact of the Richest Men on America - Research Paper Example

America’s richest men and their impact in the country John Davidson Rockefeller Born in July 8th 1839, he was an American investor, oil businessman and an altruist. He founded the Standard Oil Company in the United States which reigned over the oil business and later became the first great trade trust in the United States. He overturned and restructured the oil industry. He established the Standard Oil Company in 1870 and ran it till he retired in 1897. This Standard Oil Company had started as a partnership between John Rockefeller and his blood brother William Rockefeller together with Henry Flagler, Samuel Andrews who was a chemist and Jabez Bostwick and Stephen Harkness. Rockefeller soared to be the richest man in U.S due to the growing importance of kerosene and gasoline (Chernow, 1998, pp. 10) In 1853, his relatives shifted to Strongsville where he took a ten week course on book keeping and in 1856, he got his initial job as an assistant bookkeeper at the Hewitt & Tuttle firm. He worked long hours in that firm as he was delighted and was skillful in accounting and calculating the transport costs which later helped him in his career (Chernow, 1998, pp. 46-47). He earned $50 at the end of the month and donated 6% of these proceeds to charity. This donation later rose to 10% when he joined the Baptist church (Chernow, 1998, pp. 50) With his partner, Maurice B. Clark, in 1859, Rockefeller went into manufacturing commission trade where they raised a capital of $4000. From this, Rockefeller went into business gradually where he made money with each year (Segal, 2001, pp. 25). Together with his partner, they ventured into oil business where they first built their company first in 1863 in “The flats” then moved it to the Cleveland’s growing Industrial area. The commercial oil trade by this time was in its young growing stage. Whale Oil was the only oil that was available and was very expensive and an alternative needed to be sought, a cheaper and all- purpose lighting fuel was needed (Chernow, 1998, pp. 73-74) Rockefeller later bought the Oil Company, which had started out as a partnership, in an auction. The company had started out as a partnership between him and the Clark brothers. He positioned his business and himself well to take advantage of the post –civil war successfulness and the large expansion of the territory westward which was nurtured by the constructions of the railway lines and a oil-fueled economy. He then sought for financing and reinvested the profits he gained and adjusted quickly to the changing markets (Segall, 2001, pp. 32, 35) In the 1890’s he flourished into iron ore and ore transportation. This then forced a conflict between him and his competitor steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Then he later went on a huge buying fling where he acquired leases for crude oil production in Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia (Segall, 2001, pp. 84) From his first salary, Rockefeller tithed 10%of his proceeds to the church and he increased his giving with increase in wealth. He gave to the benefit of learning and communal health causes, fundamental science and the arts too (Ordway, 2009, p 107). Together with his consultants he discovered the conditional funding, which necessitated the beneficiaries to establish the organization in the interest of many people and that thereafter the recipient may be relied on to achieve the people’s interests and their cooperation (Fosdick, 1989, pp. 88). He funded heavily a College in Atlanta for African-American women and also gave appreciable contributions to Denison University and other Baptist Colleges. This then shows that Rockefeller supported education in US. He even founded a General Education Board in 1903 to endorse learning in the country. This played an important role in improving the living conditions of society around him (Jones-Wilson, 1996, pp.184) Rockefeller then established the Rockefeller institute for Medical Research in New York City which would still make him one of the immense beneficiaries of the Medical Science. Later in 1909 he founded the Rockefeller Sanitation Commission to eradicate hookworm disease which was prevalent in the rural areas of American South. This helped in improving health of the society (Chernow, 1998, pp.158) Rockefeller’s Oil Company enjoyed monopoly and would offer fuel at low prices to the people. This is because they traded in large quantities and also practiced different pricing at different areas according to the people’s income. (Chernow, 1998, pp.258) He was too criticized for being a petroleum robber baron that forced other companies out of the oil industry through business insights and hid it from the public. He was also accused of encircling himself with the top men to ensure the success of his business and the death and down fall of the other oil refineries. This affected the economy of the United States which had a negative impact on the common man (Segall, 2001, pp. 60) John Pierpont Morgan Born in April 17th 1837, was an American banker, banker and art collector who ruled over industrial consolidation and corporate finance. He was by no means born in a poor family as his father was a partner of the George Peabody & Co. firm. He favored to be called Piermont and had varied learning due to the hindrances by his Father. In his childhood, he was struck by a disease that left him in so much ache that he could hardly stroll and later his father send him to the Azores in order to recover. He recovered within a year and his father later sends him to several other schools to improve on fluency of French and German languages (Garraty, 1960, pp.3- 38). In 1857, he joined the banking industry where he went into his father’s branch and then later in 1858 moved to New York where he worked at the Banking House of Duncan, Sherman & company. He acted as his father’s firm as an agent in New York In 1860 to 1864, and by 1864 to 1872 he was already a member of the company of Dabney, Morgan and Company. This helped in giving him the necessary skills to venture in business (Morris, 2006, pp. 337). In his youthful days during the American Civil War, he financed the “Hall Carbine Affair” scheme that bought 5000 perilously faulty Hall’s Carbines which were being sold off by the U.S government at a very low cost of $3.50 each. These carbines were later resold to the government at a higher cost of $22 per carbine (Garraty, 1960, pp.3- 38). Morgan fought several financial wars which included the wrestling for control of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad. He broke the government-financing perquisites advanced to Jay Cooke by leading a consortium. He then became highly involved in developing and providing finances to the railroad empire. Morgan gathered large amount of money in Europe and helped railroads achieve higher efficiencies (Carosso, 1987, PP. 528-548) In 1889 and 1890, he set up conferences that brought together railroad presidents. This was after the Congress had passed the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887. The main reason why he called upon the presidents was to help the industry follow the new regulations and to write accords for the sustenance of stable, uniform and reasonable rates (Carosso, 1987, PP. 528-548) Morgan also took over businesses that were experiencing financial problems and returned them back to profitability. His rapport as a banker helped in attracting other investors into the businesses he took over (Carosso, 1987, PP. 528-548) Morgan with the Rothschild joined the Federal Treasury to supply U.S with Gold to restore the Treasury surplus. This was called for by the panic in 1895 due to the treasury running out of gold. Morgan and Wall Street bankers supported greatly the Republican William McKinley who was elected in 1896, by offering financial donation (Carosso, 1987, PP. 528-548) United States steel company, which had been started by his father, aimed to achieve huge economies of scale, reduce costs, expand on new product lines, improve product distribution and reduce transportation cost. This company had also been planned to compete internationally with such companies in Germany and Britain (Garraty, 1960, pp.3- 38). During the Financial crisis in 1907, Morgan took a personal charge by meeting up with the leading financiers in the nation where he forced them to come up with a plan on how to curb the crisis. Morgan spear headed the redirection of money between banks security of international lines of credit by organizing a team of bank and trust executives (Garraty, 1960, pp.3- 38). Andrew Carnegie He was an industrialist who contributed to the huge growth of steel industry in America. He first worked in the United States as a factory worker where he rose in ranks from being a bill logger to a messenger boy in the bobbin factory. He then later rose up in ranks of a telegraph company. Later he established Carnegies Steel Company which eventually merged with Elbert H. Gay’s Federal Steel Company and other smaller companies to form the United States Steel Company (Swetnam, 1980, pp. 11-20) Carnegie earned most of his proceeds from the steel company which he used to build the Carnegie Hall and invested in education. He had started out ads a telegrapher and by 1860’s he had invested in railroads, railroad cars, oil derricks and bridges. Being a bond salesperson in raising money for American Enterprise in Europe built him more wealth (Swetnam, 1980, pp. 34) In 1979, Carnegie put up large and spacious for the people in his hometown. He also gave $40000 towards the establishment of a free library in Dunfermline the following year. In 1884, he contributed $50000 towards the foundation of a histological laboratory in Bellevue Hospital Medical College (Swetnam, 1980, pp. 40) Carnegie wrote several books. In 1886, he wrote his revolutionary work titled triumphant democracy which is used by the liberal in its application of statistics as its basis for arguments. This book argued that the American republican government system was higher ranked than the British Monarchial system. He later then wrote wealth where he stated that the life of an industrialist should comprise and show two parts. These two parts are comprised of the gathering of the wealth and the other part is the distribution of the wealth for charity (Swetnam, 1980, pp. 38) After retirement, Carnegie spend his last days as a philanthropist. From 1901, he started being charitable and public spirited where he spear headed several projects. He powerfully supported the Spelling reform movement as a way of advancing the spread of the language of English. Carnegie also established various public libraries throughout United States, United Kingdom and other English speaking countries. In total, he financed 3, 000 libraries across these regions (The Carnegie committee, 1899, p.6). In 1901, He also launched a large pension fund for his former workers at homesteads and later in 1905, introduced this pension fund to the American college professors. In 1903 he contributed a huge amount of money for the building of the peace palace at The Hague and another Pan-American palace in Washington and later in 1904, he established the Carnegie Hero Fund for the United States and Canada (The Carnegie committee, 1899, p.6). Carnegie became interested in peace as it was a childhood dream. Carnegie was involved in wrangles with the union workers in his company where they demanded a 60% increment but gave them a 30% increment (Alexander, 1912, pp. 67). He sought for the withdrawal of American troops from Philippines stating that they needed independence of their own. The people around these rich American men were poor and could not be compared to them in terms of their living standards. References Chernow, Ron (1998). Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Random House. Segall, Grant (2001). John D. Rockefeller: Anointed With Oil. Oxford University Press Ordway, Christopher (2009). Reveal the Rockefeller Within! Dog Ear Publishing. Fosdick, Raymond Blaine (1989). The story of the Rockefeller Foundation. Transaction Publishers Jones-Wilson, Faustine Childress (1996). Encyclopedia of African-American education. Greenwood Charles R. Morris, (2006).The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Super economy Garraty, John A. (1960). The United States Steel Corporation versus Labor: the Early Years. Labor History Swetnam, George (1980) Andrew Carnegie. Twayne Publishers. The Carnegie Committee, 1999.Cornell Alumni News, II (10), 29, p. 6 Alexander Berkman. 1912. Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. Mother Earth Publishing Association Read More