Quotes from Ron Chernow

On this last count, Rockefeller was probably sincere, for what he envisioned was less a conspiracy against producers than against consumers, a united effort to ensure steady prices and adequate returns on investment.

For many years, Rockefeller had tried to free himself from details and applauded the committee system as relegating him to a fifth wheel.

This day, Gen. Washington, Gen. Mifflin and four others of the convention did us the honor of paying us a visit in order to see our vineyard and bee houses," said Peter Legaux, a French immigrant. "In this they found great delight, asked a number of questions, and testified their highest approbation with my manner of managing bees.

July 10, 1790, the House approved the Residence Act, designating Philadelphia as the temporary capital and a ten-mile-square site on the Potomac as the permanent site.

As Rockefeller pondered this, the triumph of Flexner's serum tipped the scales

Hamilton probably spent little more than two years at King's and never formally graduated due to the outbreak of the Revolution. By April 6, 1776, King's College, tarred by its earlier association with Myles Cooper, was commandeered by patriot forces and put to use as a military hospital.

soon to be eclipsed by New York.

Two people seemed to coexist inside George Washington's breast. One was the political militant who mouthed republican slogans; this Washington thought his troops would fight better if motivated by patriotic ideals. The other, schooled in the British military system, believed devoutly in top-down discipline and rank as necessary to a well-run army. This Washington was also the Virginia planter who felt little in common with the scruffy plebeians around him.

Rockefeller's overwhelming influence on the oil industry stemmed from the conflict between his overmastering need for order and the turbulent, unruly nature of the infant industry.

Till the very end, he saw the producers' outrage against him as shot through with envy and hypocrisy.

Most of these highly speculative investments never panned out.

On July 26, the House narrowly passed the assumption bill.

Among the well-intentioned men who were woefully backward in finance, if forward-looking in politics, were Hamilton's three most savage critics of the 1790s: Jefferson, Madison, and Adams. These founders adhered to a static, archaic worldview that scorned banks, credit, and stock markets. From this perspective, Hamilton was the progressive figure of the era, his critics the conservatives.

the illness left one leg shorter than the other.

As we shall see, the truth was far more complex, for the bank would skillfully harness the Fed and use it to amplify its powers.

but she was now better equipped to withstand his loss than she had been a few years earlier.

He believed in Standard Oil and gladly purchased all available stock from other directors.

When the sixty-nine electors met on February 4, 1789, they voted unanimously for Washington, who became the first president, and cast only thirty-four ballots for Adams, who came in second and thus became vice president.

Archbold scandal pushed him toward his proper career: that of a full-time philanthropist.

Tal como em seus primeiros poemas de amor juvenis em Santa Cruz, Hamilton era capaz de imaginar as jovens como deusas castas ou como megeras atrevidas. Talvez ele não soubesse ainda qual tipo preferia.

They worked in the interstices left by the big Christian houses and dealt more directly in markets than the Morgans did.

In an ironic outcome unforeseen by reformers, it would become the private bank of choice for central banks throughout the world, giving it an incalculable new advantage.

The federal government had captured forever the bulk of American taxing power.

Four rooms on the top floor were reserved for the Rockefeller family, but Senior never took advantage of this privilege, despite Gates's constant urging: