Rockefeller - John D. Rockefeller on making money : advice and words of wisdom on building and sharing wealth

Note: Spelling has been lightly edited to conform to modern standards of American English

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Jane Sheppard

Print ISBN: 978-1-63220-623-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63220-737-1

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

BIG BUSINESS IN AMERICA

Competition is a sin.

I would rather earn one percent off one hundred peoples efforts than one hundred percent of my own efforts.

The day of individual competition in large affairs is past and goneyou might just as well argue that we should go back to hand labor and throw away our efficient machinesand the sober good sense of the people will accept this fact when they have studied and tried it out.

In all times past, the weak man in the competition dropped out and was lost sight of. These men for years were importuned to join hands with those who were stronger and ready to pull them out from their embarrassments and fit them in to be useful in the administration of the Standard Oil Company so far as they had integrity, intelligence, enterprise and industry to warrant the expectation that they could be stones in the foundation of the great structure, the likes of which the world had never seen.

It is too late to argue about advantages of industrial combinations. They are a necessity. And if Americans are to have the privilege of extending their business in all the states of the Union, and into foreign countries as well, they are a necessity on a large scale, and require the agency of more than one corporation.

The dangers are that the power conferred by combination may be abused, that combinations may be formed for speculation in stocks rather than for conducting business, and that for this purpose prices may be temporarily raised instead of being lowered.

The Standard Oil Company has been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of upbuilders we ever had in this countryor in any country. All of which has inured to the benefit of the towns and cities the country over; not only in our country but the world over. And that is a very pleasant reflection now as I look back. I knew it at the time, though I realize it more keenly now.

The countrys resources have not been cut down nor injured by financial distrust. A gradual recovery will only tend to make the future all the more secure, and patience is a virtue in business affairs as in other things.

We had vision, saw the vast possibilities of the oil industry, stood at the center of it, and brought our knowledge and imagination and business experience to bear in a dozentwenty, thirtydirections. There was no branch of the business in which we did not make money.

It will be said: Here was a force that reorganized business, and everything else followed itall business, even the government itself, which legislated against it.

Beyond question there is a suspicion of corporations. There may be reason for such suspicion very often; for a corporation may be moral or immoral, just as a man may be moral or the reverse; but it is folly to condemn all corporations because some are bad, or even to be unduly suspicious of all, because some are bad. But the corporation in form and character has come to staythat is a thing that may be depended upon.

I dont want a nation of thinkers; I want a nation of workers.

Dont blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.

Good management consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest The American Beauty rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God.

The day of combination is here to stay. Individualism has gone, never to return.

Probably the greatest single obstacle to the progress and happiness of the American people lies in the willingness of so many men to invest their time and money in multiplying competitive industries instead of opening up new fields, and putting their money into lines of industry and development that are needed.

When a man has accumulated a sum of money, accumulated it within the law, the government has no right to share in its earnings.

I never go into an enterprise unless I feel sure it is coming out all right. For instance, a promising scheme may be proposed to me. It may not altogether satisfy and is rejected.