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| RON CHERNOW |
On Rockefeller's giving and receiving:
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Ron Chernow discovers contradictory Rockefeller
(CNN) -- At the turn of the century nearly 100 years ago, oil billionaire John D. Rockefeller, Sr. was the Bill Gates of his time. Rockefeller's life is the subject of a fascinating new book from author Ron Chernow. "The Titan" is now No. 12 on "The New York Times" best-seller list.
Chernow spoke with Miles O'Brien on CNN's Sunday Morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm curious, what led you to this particular subject matter? There has been a lot written about him.
RON CHERNOW, AUTHOR, "TITAN": Frankly, I didn't want to write about Rockefeller at the beginning. I thought that he was such a cold, boring, wooden, mean monopolist that there would be nothing new to say, but in fact back in the mid-1970s the Rockefeller family threw open the papers. There were millions of new documents to look at and I felt that I could merely create a much more rounded and complex and nuanced portrait of this fascinating figure.
O'BRIEN: And many would say that you have succeeded very well in that regard. What's interesting about Rockefeller is the contradictions. On the one hand, he was very philanthropic, on the other hand he was very parsimonious. It might be an urban myth: He never tipped his barber, right?
CHERNOW: He was rather cheap when it came to tipping. He always felt that people were trying to take advantage of his wealth. But really you put your finger on the essence of the book, which is the contradictions of the man. Here was a man who was simultaneously the most ferrous monopolist of the gilded age. He was also the far-sighted and enlightened philanthropist and was a very devout Baptist. He said that when he was a teenager, the preacher told him to make as much money as he could and give away as much money as he could and he managed to do both with unparalleled success throughout his life.
O'BRIEN: Put it in perspective for us. The billionaire we hear a lot about these days is Bill Gates. How would they compare on an inflation-adjusted basis.
CHERNOW: John D. Rockefeller reached the peak of his net worth in 1913. He was worth $900 million, now this sounds like small potatoes in the age of Bill Gates who has more than $50 billion. But if we translate it into contemporary dollars, John D's wealth was $13 billion. Again, it still seems quite shy of Chairman Bill's wealth.
O'BRIEN: But not exactly chump change either.
CHERNOW: No. But in 1913, the entire federal budget was $715 million, so John D. could have single handedly paid the federal budget that year. The accumulated national debt of the United States was $1.2 billion, so John D., had he chosen, could have retired three quarters of the national debt. His fortune was 2.5 percent of the gross national product of the United States versus 0.5 percent for Bill Gates. So Rockefeller actually loomed larger in the economy of his day, believe it or not.
O'BRIEN: I suppose there's another point worth bringing up here. Perhaps there could be an argument, maybe you'll disagree with me, that at the peak of his control he controlled many more aspects of his industry and perhaps people's lives. Would you agree?
CHERNOW: There was an analogy to the extent that oil was really to the industrial age what software is to the information age and you hear very similar arguments being made today where people say that computers are so central to the economy and it's the industry revolutionizing all other industries, that it's dangerous for one man -- Bill Gates, and one company, Microsoft, to have this kind of domination. People said exactly the same thing about John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil because oil was acquiring a pervasive presence in the economy. It was the source of more than 200 different products and people were saying that it was dangerous for one person and one company to have that kind of power.
O'BRIEN: Briefly, what's your next project going to be? I know you looked at the Morgans. You've looked at other wealthy dynasties. What are you looking at now?
CHERNOW: I'm thinking of doing some kind of historical comparison between the moguls of the industrial age and those of the information age.