Quotes from Ron Chernow

By 1784, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had outlawed slavery or passed laws for its gradual extinction

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, slaves constituted 40 percent of the population of his home state, Virginia.

But Perkins had left the bank on bad terms

By the spring of 1891, Rockefeller began to develop the queasy sense that Harper regarded his money as a blank check to cover annual deficits.

Although Rockefeller never said so outright, one senses that he thought Flagler had become a slave to fashion and ostentation, a traitor to the austere puritanical creed that had united them.

I doubt if Mr. Rockefeller's attention could be attracted.

Oddly, he expressed affection for William Rockefeller, whom he portrayed as solid, laconic, and far more trustworthy than Rogers.

Tough challenges from Rockefeller might have blunted Tarbell's confidence and made readers question her sources.

Tens of thousands of onlookers gaped in amazement as the shattered British troops marched out of Yorktown and, to the tune of an old English ballad, "The World Turned Upside Down

So why did Rockefeller stick to his self-defeating silence?

Rockefeller eventually realized that medical research ideally suited his needs.

Gates met with Harper and urged him to shed his outside activities.

Flagler had a lean, handsome face and was highly susceptible to female charm.

Rockefeller was a forgiving lender and, by all accounts, lenient to a fault.

But the main reason for Rockefeller's silence was that he couldn't dispute just a few of Tarbell's assertions without admitting the truth of many others

The Negro will disappear from the field of national politics...Henceforth the nation, as a nation, will have nothing more to do with him. (The Nation, progressive periodical of our day, published demeaning, racist opinions of Black Americans during Reconstruction (ie pg. 854 softcover)

By 1900, the nation's railroads were consolidated into six huge systems controlled by Wall Street bankers, principally J. P. Morgan

Our country is full of hatred and bitterness and talk."34

He had suffered many personal misfortunes in marriage and exercised woefully bad judgment.

to be an essential ingredient in its structure that it shall be under a private not a public direction, under the guidance of individual interest, not of public policy.

born contrarian, Rockefeller insisted upon buying in declining markets and selling in rising ones. When accumulating a position, he bought stocks each time they declined an eighth of a point; when unwinding a position, he sold each time the stock rose an eighth of a point—a technique that gave him an average over an extended period.

Para deixar bem clara a questão, alguns exemplares foram embebidos em alcatrão e cobertos de penas, antes de serem afixados em pelourinhos.

Wit not well govern'd rankles into vice / He to his Jest his Friend will sacrifice!

To some extent, Rockefeller sent out conflicting messages and was partly to blame for Harper's profligacy.