PIERPONT MORGAN AND ROCKEFELLER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2054, 4 December 1907, Page 4

PIERPONT MORGAN AND ROCKEFELLER.

THE WOULD’S richest man

An illustrated catalogue (sn.vß “M.A.P.”) is being prepared of -*r. l’ierpont Morgan’s art treasures, which have cost him several million pounds, and copies, printed on vellum, are to be presented to all the kings of Europe. The greater part of Mr Morgan’s collection is stored at his London house, 13 Prince’s Onto, where lie keeps a staff of six stalwart policemen to guard it. His hooks are almost as valuable as his paintings, for he paid nearly a million pounds for William Morris’s entire library, including thirty-six fine Caxtons. But. it is not only on books and pictures that Mr Morgan spends his money. His yacht. The Corsair, cost, more than £IOO,OOO, and in America he has a magnificent special train which has a right of way over all other trains. Even his cigars cost £9O a thousand. But ho is generous 'with his money. He gave £200,000 for the erection of medical schools, £IOO,OOO to endow a trade school, 'and tlio same amount to build a cathedral in New York. l«’or .Mr Morgan is a pillar of tlio church, even though it is said that hiseusom is to read novels on his way to service.

Tlio mass of figures presented in the federal suit to crush the Standard Oil Trust has (says the New York correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph”) loft most people in a whirl of confusion regarding the precise income of Mr John D. Rockefeller. That tlio ■president of the StmtUml Oil Company is the world’s richest man everybody hero has regarded as a fact above suspicion, but how much ho has been getting from oil has never been mado perfectly clear until the experts reported to the law courts. It was proved that he owns moro than five times as much stock as any other individuals, his present holdings being 247,692 shares. The value of Mr Rockefeller’s oil stock is about £22,000,000. Emm ISS2 to 1599 he received in 'dividends £12,664,70!*, and from 1599 to 1906 £16,034,558, making a total in oil dividends for 25 years of £28,699,590. These figures ,though vast, are a disappointment to patriots who held tlia.t Mr Rockefeller’s wealth was so incontestably great as to defy comp.U'ifreni. >lt is a cause for national mortification that, after loti years of independence, America has not yet produced a dollar billionaire. Even allowing tlr.t Mr Rockefeller’s other holdings an .try large, nresumaMv the ntatru'cut made last spring by Air Frederick Gates, in his behalf, is fairly accurate. His fortune was then given as a Scant £60.000,000, and Ins largost nnnualincome as £4,000,000. It may be that the news of. Mr Rockefeller’s limited means will stimulate other rising millionaires to outdo him. Air Carnegie, at his richest has probably been on a par with him. Both have been spendthrift philanthropists, and both are pretty old to reform. Since 1892 it is estimated that Air Rockefeller has given away about two-tliirds of his oil income to the cause of education, churches, and missions, and ho is still giving.