ROCKEFELLER MILLIONS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4435, 3 July 1922, Page 3

ROCKEFELLER MILLIONS.

Making millions while you wait does nbt seem to have interfiled with the longevity of the Rockefeller family. Mr. William Rockefeller, now deceased, was bom eighty-one years ago, and his brother, the indefatigable John D., is two years older. They started independently, both beginning as, clerks at small salaries, and both embarking, in the oil business in separate firms in the ’s'xtiep. In 1867 they joined forces, having scraped together a few thousands, and thenceforwards their rise was rnefcepric, and by 1872 they had the Standard o'l Company going with a capital: of £5OO, 000. .Mr. William Rockefeller gradually sank out of. sight into an advisory and his brother became the supreme and. sole executive. TUiiere will naturally be much speculation as to the amount left by Mr. Wililiam Rockefeller, but in fortunes sb colossal as those of the Rockefellers the difference between one day’s Stock Exchange, prices and the next makes a difference of several] million dollars. Ten years back the William Rockefeller fortune was estimated si £40,000,000, and tihat o f John D. Rockefeller at £180,000,000. To what colossal size the war and the intervening years has swoHlen these figures it is impossible to say. About twenty years back Mr. John D. Rockefeller said he was worth “between £60,000,000 and £30,000,000,” but confessed he could not tell,.“within- £2,000,000 or more" what the exact ■sum would be, even if he sat down to work it out. EVen in 1912 it was declared that the John D. Rockefeller income was £13.000,000 a year, or something over a million pounds a month, a quarter of a milflion a week, or £35,000 a day. Mr. Rockefeller must .have left his competitors in mil-lion-making far behind, for in 1920 the United States Internal Revenue Bureau reported, only two incomes "over 3,000,000 dollars a year,” twen-ty-eight above 2,000,000 dollars, and thirteen between 1 500,000 and 2,000,000 dollars. Altogether there were in the United States in that year twenty thousand heads of. families with incomes of 50,000 dollars and over. The Rockefeller millions, however, must make all the rest, apd even Charlie Chaplin’s salary, look very small beer indeed.