John D's Fortune $1,000,000,000

1916

Information of the existence of a balance sheet compiled at Cleveland ten days ago on the occasion of John D. Rockefeller's 77th birthday, showing that his private fortune, exclusive of endowment funds and other benefactions, exceeds a billion dollars, is said to be in possession of the authorities of Cuyahoga county.

The existence of the balance sheet, indicating that Mr. Rockefeller's fortune exceeds that of any man in the world, was discovered in the search for evidence to present in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in a forthcoming attempt of Cuyahoga county to force Mr. Rockefeller to pay taxes on holdings of more than three hundred million dollars. Mr. Rockefeller obtained an injunction in the United States District court in Cleveland, preventing the enforcement of tax collection on the holdings in October, 1915, and in December of the same year Cuyahoga county filed an appeal in the United States Circuit court.

Since the county authorities have been endeavoring to obtain evidence that Mr. Rockefeller was a legal resident of Cleveland. He is now at his home in Cleveland, and on July 9 celebrated his 77th birthday. It was about that time, it is understood, that a balance sheet containing the extent and the varied amounts of his holdings was presented to him. The balance sheet, according to authentic information, indicated that the Rockefeller fortune had exceeded $1,000,000,000 and steadily was mounting upward; so rapidly, in fact, that, with all of his enormous benefactions, Mr. Rockefeller was unable to dispose of the income.

Of the enormous total nearly $500,000,000 represents Mr. Rockefeller's holdings in the various Standard Oil companies and their subsidiaries. He holds approximately 247,962 shares out of a total of 883,383 shares issued in all of the companies. The stock is now quoted around $1700, about three times what it was before the federal courts issued the order dissolving the great corporation into independent companies.

The balance of Mr. Rockefeller's fortune, it is understood, is shown to be in enormous holdings in various railway and banking corporations, the United States Steel corporation, and in National, Municipal, State and in foreign bond issues. Among his holdings it is recorded, there are $10,000,000 of Anglo-French war bonds, floated here last year by the Allied commission.

Naturally, with such amazing accumulation of wealth, the variations of the stock market day by day increase or decrease the fortune by a million or more dollars. Since the compilation of the schedule in June, immediately succeeding the announcement that the half year's gifts of the Rockefeller Foundation, merely one of his projects, were more than three million dollars, the fortune is said to have shown a great increase. That is because of the steadily upward trend of various stocks because of the enlivened commerce of the country.

Neither Mr. Rockefeller nor his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., are engaged actively in business. Since 1910, when their joint benefactions first began to loom large in the generosities of the world, eclipsing those of Andrew Carnegie, it is estimated that the Rockefellers have given a way approximately $200,000,000.

The most conspicuous of the benefactors have been the General Education Board, which has received about $60,000,000; University of Chicago to which has been given $25,000,000; Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, $10,000,000; Rush Medical College, $6,000,000; missions of the Baptist church at home and abroad, $8,000,000; to various colleges and universities in the United States, including Yale, Harvard, Barnard, Union Theological Seminary of New York, the Baptist and the Southern Education Fund, about $30,000,000; the Young Men's Christian Association, $4,000,000; to various hospitals and medical colleges, $20,000,000; for juvenile reform work, $3,000,000; and to Cleveland for betterment purposes, $3,000,000.

Since the war in Europe, the Rockefeller Foundation has given about $10,000,000 for relief work for a wide and varied character, but despite the great demands, the income accruing from the endowment fund, it is said, is not entirely used up. To the Rockefeller foundation, organized in the words of Mr. Rockefeller "for the good of mankind," will probably be the disburser of this greatest of existing fortunes. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is the chief administrator of the great fund. The organization which will use the wealth has the following for its avowed purpose:—

"To make this vast force a living organism, which will have the freedom of a live thing, to give aid swiftly and largely when aid is most needed, not a mere accident of death that may set the money free for certain limited uses. No man can foresee the needs of ten, twenty or fifty years from now. The Foundation is limited only by the field of human civilization and human need. It will be a great clearing house for humanitarian effort all over the world."

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 1.