Monopolizing the kerosene market during the civil war, John D.Rockefeller grabbed up the oil refineries like a marauding lion. Then when the big gas eating cars came along a few years later he was able to turn Standard oil into the biggest corporation in the world. Standard oil was described in 1880 as the most cruel, impudent, pitiless, grasping monopoly that ever latched onto a country. Ida Tarbell exposed Rockefeller’s crooked dealings in her 1904 book, The History of Standard Oil Company.

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Rockefeller hired a public relations agent who advised him in order to save his reputation to give some of his money away. Rockefeller had plenty to give. He had more money than anyone in the world who had accumulated his own wealth. During the next thirty years of his life he watered many worthy causes with donations. He financed a black woman’s college in Atlanta and named it Spellman after his in-laws. His school board helped pay for an education for blacks all over the south.

He founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, turned a small Baptist college into the University of Chicago, and established one of the worlds largest foundations to further medical training and the arts. And these were only some of his charities. In all Rockefeller gave away over $550 million when the country’s gross domestic product was around $34 billion. He did at the least pay back some of what he had taken.

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Andrew Carnegie was an equally fierce businessman. His battle cry was, “Scoop the market.” A battle cry that drove many an iron ore field into the hands of Carnegie Steel company. By the end of the century he ran the country’s biggest iron and steel cooperation. When J.P. Morgan bought the company in 1901, he pronounced Carnegie the wealthiest man in America. Carnegie hadn’t suffered an exposea about his under handed dealing but the Homestead Act of 1892 had blackened his name.

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He was also one of the 50 men who had built the large earthen dam that failed and flooded Johnstown, Pa. in 1889 killing 2,000 people. Carnegie began to devote his time to philanthropy. He funded more than 2,000 public libraries throughout the world. He established the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. During the last 30 years of his life he gave away half his fortune.

Today’s bankers are too small minded to fathom such generosity. Their excuses for using profits to bestow multi million dollar bonuses on executives is that huge bonuses are necessary to retain top of the line talent. With the money the government has given them they could easily free up enough money to launch a Rockefeller-Carnegie campaign remake of their images. If the public keeps intensifying the pressure we might see some results yet.

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