A generation age John D. Rockefeller was the supreme personification of capitalism at its worst. In our own life time through the persistent efforts of his publicity man, Mr. Ivy Lee, he has very nearly become the supreme personification of capitalism at its best. Has he not become a benign old gentleman who gives dimes to caddies and whose birthday is a regular newspaper event? That he was once thought of as an industrial giant who ruthlessly demolished his competitors and as an ogre who preyed upon a defenseless public is now usually forgotten.

Rockefeller, as Mr. Flynn sees him, is an organizing genius with the soul of a pious bookkeeper. Rockefeller's world has always been extraordinary circumscribed. As a young man it was continued almost exclusively to his produce business--his Sunday school class was almost his only diversion. He applied himself to getting ahead. When in the sixties he went into the oil refinery business, his way went through chaos. He shuddered at the prolific wastes of competition. The solution which he saw was combination and he applied himself to the task of making a combination which would make his business secure. The only safety was supremacy. One secret of the Standard Oil was that it was a combination of brains. His associates, Harkness, Flagler, Archbold, Rogers, Payne, Pratt and Whitney were among the shrewdest, most unscrupulous and determined men of business that this country has seen. They get what they wanted. Freight rebates, favorable court decisions, markets, all sorts of advantages were seized upon to keep them in the lead, which they kept in spite of public abuse and legislative attacks.

Mr. Flynn's book is crammed with fascinating material which unfortunately has been put together a little too hastily to make a sharply drawn and forceful portrait of either the man or his time. His appraisal of the man differs markedly from that of Rockefeller's early muckrackers, William D. Lloyd and Ida Tarbell, who wrote before the great philanthropies had mellowed public sentiment and mergers had become respectable. These critics were dominated by the competitive ideal which Rockefeller perceived at the outset as false and inapplicable to the exigencies of the business situation and which we have more recently come to doubt as sound public policy. Valid criticism of Rockefeller should be based upon his lust for profits. The Standard Oil showed as little consideration to its customers as it did to its competitors. It is small consolation to them to know that Rockefeller was more honest in not watering his stock or rigging his companies than other capitalist promoters. Even a gift of seven hundred millions to worthy causes does not justify it, especially when one recalls that he and his associates pocketed about twice as much besides. And although one can respect the sincerity of Rockefeller's statement that "God gave me my money," one may be certain that the overwhelming power over others which that money gave him is incompatible with the best in his own religion. J. B. N.