The richest man in the world was on the run.
President Theodore Roosevelt’s Justice Department was planning
to file an antitrust suit against Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company in 1906,
and the states wanted to get into the action before the Attorney General did.
Multiple lawsuits were filed against the directors of the company that
controlled over ninety percent of oil production in the United States and had,
by prevailing accounts, used unfair practices to gain its monopoly in the
market.
Once the floodgates of lawsuits against Standard Oil opened,
the focus landed on the company’s origins and rise to power, which meant the
testimony of the company’s founder was essential. And of course, having the
richest man in the world dragged into your courtroom was a pretty big deal. Process servers and newsmen engaged in a massive manhunt to find him and serve him with subpoenas.
But a man with multiple estates and an annual income of over fifty million dollars could hide out anywhere. He wouldn't be found until he wanted to be found.
Unless you followed your nose.
On
our next episode, we catch up with “The Most Famous Man in The World” as Teddy
Roosevelt returns to America after his African safari and world tour to find
that President William Howard Taft has made a real mess of things and just
maybe, he will have to do something about it.
Stay tuned for Teddy Roosevelt’s Third Term, Part V.
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Sources
Chernow, Ron. “Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.”
Vintage, 2007
Ohio History Central. “John D. Rockefeller.” Retrieved
August 13, 2021 from https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/John_D._Rockefeller
Tarbell, Ida M. “The History of the Standard Oil Company:
Vol. 1 & 2.” Joe Barta, 2012.
Wikipedia. “John D. Rockefeller.” Retrieved August 13, 2021
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller
Wikipedia. “Standard Oil.” Retrieved August 13, 2021 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
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