Transcript: The Rockefellers PART 1

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Transcript: The Rockefellers

THE ROCKEFELLERS -- PART I

Written, Produced and Directed by Elizabeth Deane

NARR: They feared the temptations of wealth, yet a visitor once described their estate as the kind of place God would have built -- if only he'd had the money. They amassed a fortune that outraged a democratic nation, then gave it away, re-shaping America. They were the closest thing the country had to a royal family, but the Rockefellers shunned the public eye, retreating behind the walls of their palatial home at Pocantico, New York.

STEVEN ROCKEFELLER: My own personal experience as a child is of a place that, on the one hand, was something of an Eden. It was serene and beautiful. As we grew up, a number of us began to experience Pocantico also as something of a prison that cut us off from the larger world.

NARR: The family found themselves haunted by the controversy surrounding John D. Rockefeller, king of Standard Oil. Vilified as a ruthless predator, as "evil incarnate," he had created an industrial empire -- and a personal fortune -- on a scale the world had never known.

PETER COLLIER, Biographer: The great drama for the Rockefellers is to deal with the wealth, to deal with it as a physical fact. To deal with this fortune that is growing day by day in a way they can't control anymore. But also, they have to deal with the fact of this money as a moral fact. How do you control it? How do you control yourself?

NARR: In the drama of the Rockefellers, John D. Junior was cast in an almost impossible role.

RON CHERNOW, Biographer: Here was the son of the most controversial businessman in America, who had to figure out, by sheer force of character, a way to change the image and the direction of this family without openly repudiating this father he loved.

NARR: In his quest for redemption and respectability, John D. Jr. would push his family to the pinnacle of American power. One of his sons would reach for the highest prize, the presidency -- and provoke a new generation's rage and hostility.

Protester: There's a million questions that you're gonna have to answer, Mr. Rockefeller, because you and your brothers, you are the ones who are the problem for this country... "

NARR: For more than a century, the Rockefellers' wealth and influence have attracted both attention and suspicion -- and threatened to tear the family apart.

STEVEN ROCKEFELLER: Why do we want to preserve this power? Why do we want to devote our lives to maintaining all these institutions that have been created by the family. What is the purpose of all this? And I think for many of us, we came to realize that the real problem of life is the integration of power and goodness.

The Rockefellers

NARR: October 9th, 1901: The steam yacht Wild Duck sailed out of Providence, Rhode Island. On board was one of the richest men in America, John D. Rockefeller, and his family. The boat was bound for an estate at Warwick Neck, on the west shore of Narragansett Bay. Soon the groomed lawns would welcome five hundred guests, the lions of the gilded age. Outside the gates, reporters gathered -- for the wedding of Rockefeller's only son, John Jr., and Abby Aldrich, daughter of a powerful Rhode Island senator. Pinkerton guards had been deployed to protect the bejeweled guests and glittering wedding presents. They had another, more dangerous assignment. John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, was the most hated man in America -- described as monstrous, evil, cruel. Rockefeller was hounded by reporters -- stalked by strangers asking for money. He had taken to keeping a revolver by his bed. There had been kidnap threats against his family -- and letters warning of homemade bombs destined for the Rockefellers' house. This was a family under siege. It would fall to the new bride -- and to the dutiful, obedient son, already oppressed by the burdens of growing up a Rockefeller -- to find a way forward for the family.

NARR: In the early nineteenth century, they called this part of upstate New York the "Burned Over District." Burned not by fire, but by fire and brimstone, by the blaze of Christian revivalism. Preachers urged a life of hard work, prayer, and good deeds, to build the Kingdom of God on Earth. It was in the midst of this evangelical fervor that John Davison Rockefeller was born in 1839 -- the second of five children. His mother, Eliza Davison Rockefeller, was deeply religious, stern, disciplined. Even as a young woman, she had not been given to smiles and laughter.

CHERNOW: But she had this fatal moment of weakness one day when William Avery Rockefeller appeared on her doorstep peddling cheap trinkets, and he had a little slate that was tied to his buttonhole, and on the slate he had chalked, "I am deaf and dumb." This was part of his con man routine. And Eliza, quite out of character, was immediately smitten by this charming rascal, and in fact proclaimed in his presence, "I'd marry him if he weren't deaf and dumb."

ALBERT BERGER, Historian: He's a scoundrel. Apparently an enchanting scoundrel in person, and he certainly enchanted Eliza, and apparently he enchanted a good many other women, too, which is part of being a scoundrel.

NARR: Unlike his devout wife, William Avery Rockefeller kept away from the church. He was a traveling man, a salesman who sold quack cures from a wagon out on the western frontier. People whispered about his footloose life. They called him "Devil Bill."

BERGER: He would come and go as he pleased, never with advance warning. He'd be away for months — there'd be credit at the store. One winter he ran up a bill in one store of $1,000, and in the 19th century that's an enormous sum of money. But then he would come back, most frequently at night so people would never know where he came from, and he would tell stories of his exploits that were never quite complete enough to pin him down as to what he had done or where he had done it.

NARR: Devil Bill's laughter and music flooded the house. He would be fingering wads of cash, wearing fancy new clothes. He once appeared with a patchwork tablecloth made out of bank notes. "I had a peculiar training in my home," John D. observed of his childhood. " It seemed to be a business training from the beginning."

BERGER: Bill Rockefeller admitted to one of his neighbors, "I do business deals with my sons and I always try to cheat them to make them sharp." Now, John D. did not always like those lessons in business, but he absorbed them.

NARR: His father lent him money -- always at the prevailing interest rate -- then deliberately called in the loans without warning to make sure his son had kept reserves. With Devil Bill, John D. discovered the excitement of taking a big risk, the allure of cold cash. Eliza taught him the sober habits of her Christian faith -- thrift, hard work, and perfect self control.

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