With such power in their hands, instead of selling their product at high rates, they have kept oil at such low prices that the poorest all over the world have been enabled to buy and use it.
Mr. Rockefeller has not confined his business interests to the Standard Oil Company. He owns iron-mines and land in various States; he owns a dozen or more immense vessels on the lakes, besides being largely interested in other steamship lines on both the ocean and the great lakes; he has investments in several railroads, and is connected with many other industrial enterprises.
With all these different lines of business, and being necessarily a very busy man, he never seems hurried or worried. His manner is always kindly and considerate. He is a good talker, an equally good listener, and gathers knowledge from every source. Meeting the best educators of the country, coming in contact with leading business and professional men as well, and having travelled abroad and in his own country, Mr. Rockefeller has become a man of wide and varied intelligence. In physique he is of medium height, light hair turning gray, blue eyes, and pleasant face.
He is a lover of trees, never allowing one to be cut down on his grounds unless necessity demands it, fond of flowers, knows the birds by their song or plumage, and never tires of the beauties of nature.
He is as courteous to a servant as to a millionnaire, is social and genial, and enjoys the pleasantry of bright conversation. He has great power of concentration, is very systematic in business and also in his every-day life, allotting certain hours to work, and other hours to exercise, the bicycle being one of his chief out-door pleasures. He is fond of animals, and owns several valuable horses. A great Saint Bernard dog, white and yellow, called "Laddie," was for years the pet of the household and the admiration of friends. When recently killed accidentally by an electric wire, the dog was carefully buried, and the grave covered with myrtle. A pretty stone, a foot and a half high, cut in imitation of the trunk of an oak-tree, at whose base fern-leaves cluster, marks the spot, with the words "Our dog Laddie; died, 1895," carved upon a tiny slab.
It may be comparatively easy to do great deeds, but the little deeds of thoughtfulness and love for the dumb creatures who have loved us show the real beauty and refinement of character.
Mr. Rockefeller belongs to few social organizations, his church work and his home-life sufficing. He is a member of the New England Society, the Union League Club of New York, and of the Empire State Sons of the Revolution, as his ancestors, both on his father's and mother's side, were in the Revolutionary War.
His home is a very happy one. Into it have been born five children,—Bessie, Alice, who died early, Alta, Edith, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Bessie is married to Charles A. Strong, Associate Professor of Psychology in Chicago University, a graduate of both the University of Rochester and Harvard, and has been a student at the Universities of Berlin and Paris. He is a son of the Rev. Dr. Augustus H. Strong, President of Rochester Theological Seminary.
Edith is married to Harold F. McCormick of Chicago, a graduate of Princeton, and son of the late Cyrus H. McCormick, whose invention of the reaper has been a great blessing to the world. Mr. McCormick gave generously of his millions after he had acquired wealth.