184 I. C. WHITE HISTORY 0¥ PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS 



business himself, after borrowing another thousand from his father. 

 Starting on his business career in 1858 with this modest capital, the 

 fruit of his boyhood thrift and savings of three years, his meteoric 

 business progress from this simple beginning to that of the richest man 

 in the world illustrates in a striking way how, under the freedom of 

 American institutions, not only the "rail-splitter," the "tanner," or any 

 other class of common laborer may rise to the Chief Magistracy of the 

 Nation, but that the poor boy may become the richest citizen of the 

 world through his own unaided genius and initiative. 



The very next year after Colonel Drake had discovered a method of 

 securing from the earth large quantities of petroleum young Rockefeller 

 had the vision to foresee the possibility of furnishing the world with a 

 new, better, and cheaper light than the tallow dip then universally in 

 use. Hence, entering the refining business in 1863, only three years 

 after Colonel Drake's discovery, his name and the business organizations 

 founded principally through him have been inseparably connected with 

 the history of petroleum and natural gas ever since. 



Sanctity of private Property the only Path to Progress 



It has been only a short time since it was quite the popular thing 

 for some men of narrow vision and superficial acquaintance with the 

 practical business afi:airs of life to sneer at such men as Mr. Rockefeller, 

 whose wealth has been accumulated so largely from industries founded 

 upon petroleum and natural gas, and even to advocate the rejection of 

 any philanthropic gifts, as "tainted money," when proffered by men who 

 had through foresight, industry, and thrift accumulated large fortunes. 

 The business success of Mr. Rockefeller represents the American theory 

 of the sancity of private property, the greatest incentive to individual 

 efliort and the general progress of civilization, as opposed to Bolshevism 

 and Communism, which regard all privately owned property as but 

 another name for theft, and which would have the State take over and 

 either redistribute all private fortunes or possess them for the benefit 

 of not all, but of a class (the proletariat), after the capitalists had been 

 dispossessed and drived out or killed. This latter theory of government 

 and property, fortunately for the future progress and stability of 

 civilization, has recently been put to the test of actual trial on an 

 enormous scale, involving the destinies of more than one hundred mil- 

 lion of the human race. Lenin and Trotzky have had unlimited 

 opportunity to make a practical test of the Communistic theory, that all 

 privately owned property represents robbery of the poor, and that every- 



