Do You Know The Only Thing

Quoted from a remark Rockefeller made to a neighbor, as reported by John Lewis in Cosmopolitan magazine (1908). By this point Rockefeller had retired from day-to-day management of Standard Oil in 1896 but retained his massive shareholding, and for the remaining four decades of his life he collected dividend checks. The candor of the remark — made to a neighbor rather than in a formal address — sits in notable tension with his more public statements about wealth as stewardship and service. He later elaborated to a reporter: "I believe the power to make money is a gift from God, to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind."