Nelson Rockefeller – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Benjamin Franklin’s basement was literally filled with skeletons

A pre-1850 folk art tavern sign depicting Benjamin Franklin sold for $11,250 at a May 2014 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Benjamin Franklin House is a formal museum in Central London near Trafalgar Square. It’s a popular location for kooky political speeches and peaceful demonstrations. Although anyone is free to speak about virtually anything, many visitors are not raptly paying attention, preferring to instead feed the pigeons. I never had the temerity to practice my public speaking, although I’m sometimes tempted (“Going wobbly,” as my English friends would observe).

Known once as Charing Cross, Trafalgar Square now commemorates the British naval victory in October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the Spanish and French fleets there, resulting in Britain gaining global sea supremacy for the next century.

The Franklin House is reputedly the only building still standing where Franklin actually lived … anywhere. He resided there for several years after accepting a diplomatic role from the Pennsylvania Assembly in pre-Revolutionary times. Derelict for most of the 20th century, the site caused a stir 20-plus years ago while it was being renovated. During the extensive excavation, a cache of several hundred human bones were unearthed

Since anatomy was one of the few scientific things Franklin did not dabble in, the general consensus was that one of his colleagues did, at a time when privately dissecting cadavers was unlawful and those who did it were very discreet. I discovered the museum while riding a black cab on the way to the American Bar at the nearby Savoy Hotel. I may take the full tour if we ever return to London.

However, my personal favorite is likely to remain the Franklin Institute in the middle of Philadelphia. A large rotunda features the official national memorial to Franklin: a 20-foot marble statue sculpted by James Earle Fraser in 1938. It was dedicated by Vice President Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller in 1976. Fraser is well known in the worlds of sculpting, medals and coin collecting. He designed the Indian Head (Buffalo) nickel, minted from 1913-38; several key dates in high grade have sold for more than $100,000 at auction. I’ve owned several nice ones, including the popular 3-Leg variety that was minted in Denver in 1937. (Don’t bother checking your change!).

Fraser (1876-1953) grew up in the West and his father, an engineer, was one of the men asked to help retrieve remains from Custer’s Last Stand. George Armstrong Custer needs no introduction due to his famous massacre by the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho in 1876 – the year Fraser was born – in the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Montana). But it helps explain his empathy for American Indians as they were forced off their reservations. His famous statue titled End of the Trail depicts the despair in a dramatic and memorable way. The Beach Boys used it for the cover of their 1971 album Surf’s Up.

Another historic Fraser sculpture is 1940’s Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. Roosevelt is on horseback with an American Indian standing on one side and an African-American man on the other. The AMNH was built using private funds, including from TR’s father, and it is an outstanding world-class facility in a terrific location across from Central Park.

However, there is a movement to have Roosevelt’s statue removed, with activists claiming it is racist and emblematic of the theft of land by Europeans. Another group has been active throwing red paint on the statue while a commission appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio studies how to respond to the seemingly endless efforts to erase history. Apparently, the city’s Columbus Circle and its controversial namesake have dropped off the radar screen.

JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Here’s Why Rosenwald Belongs with Titans Like Rockefeller, Carnegie

A card with signatures and a photograph of President Calvin Coolidge, New York Governor Alfred E. Smith and Julius Rosenwald, circa 1930, went to auction in 2008.

By Jim O’Neal

One fact that is difficult to verify is the total net worth of the Rockefeller family fortune. John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (1839-1937) rose from pious beginnings to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s most powerful monopoly, Standard Oil Company. Scores of muckrakers (especially Ida Tarbell) scorned it as “The Octopus” and posters protested the company by showing it swallowing the world … whole.

He is definitely the most prominent and controversial businessman in our history, especially when the trust he created came from refining 90 percent of the oil produced and marketed in America. His vocal critics charged he was an unscrupulous man who colluded with railroads to fix prices, and conducted illegal industrial espionage and outright bribery of political officials. It took Teddy Roosevelt and his team of stalwart trustbusters to break the trust, but even that inured to his benefit since he had ownership shares in all the new, smaller entities that were created.

Although the business practices were as ruthless and corrupt as charged, he was a quirky, passionate, temperate advocate who was generous and gave enormous sums to organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation, University of Chicago and what is now Rockefeller University. As an old man (he lived to be 98), he was parodied as a harmless billionaire who delighted in giving shiny dimes to needy children.

The actual story has grown much more complex after his only son, John D. Rockefeller Jr. (1874-1960), took over the massive estate and had five sons of his own. The last one, David Rockefeller, died last year and his personal estate was auctioned off this month by an East Coast firm. The total net proceeds were consigned to 12 of his favorite charities, which will create another layer of veneer over the money. What we know is that 1,500 items sold for over $832 million, setting 22 records in the process.

Another son of Junior was Nelson Rockefeller (1908-1979), who was governor of New York and made unsuccessful attempts to snag the GOP presidential nomination in 1960, 1964 and 1968. After serving in other high-profile positions, he was chosen by Gerald Ford to be the 47th vice president of the United States after Richard Nixon’s resignation. Rockefeller holds the distinction of being the last VP to decline to seek re-election when he decided not to join the 1976 Republican ticket with Ford.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was another famous philanthropist who made a fortune in steel and spent the last 18 years of his life giving $350 million to charities, foundations and universities. “I should consider it a disgrace to die a rich man.” Both the Rockefeller and Carnegie names have been well known throughout the 20th century, primarily because of the numerous foundations and buildings that bear their names.

But let’s focus now on an equally generous man who is largely forgotten because no foundations and few buildings mention him.

Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) made his fortune the old-fashioned way. He earned it. He started running a clothing store in Springfield, Ill., and then went to New York to learn about the garment business. When he returned to Chicago, he opened another modest clothing store, but also started shrewdly investing in a small catalog store with the undistinguished name of Sears, Roebuck & Company. When co-founder Richard Sears left the company in 1908, Rosenwald assumed a leadership role. With financial help from Henry Goldman (son of Marcus Goldman of Goldman Sachs), he expanded the company with a massive 40-acre mail-order plant on Chicago’s West Side.

Then, in an unprecedented move in 1906, an IPO with Goldman was created, and Sears became a public company. Rosenwald had climbed from a vice president to chairman and CEO, and the new plant in Chicago, with a staggering 3 million square feet, became the largest building in the world. In the process, Sears became America’s largest retailer and people all over the United States discovered how to order using the mail, after hours of thumbing through the sacred Sears catalog.

The demise of Sears is well known and the company is currently being dismantled and sold by brand. It may not be as quickly forgotten as Julius Rosenwald, who went to extremes to be modest. When he died in 1932, it is estimated that he had donated $2 billion to a wide range of interests, including projects that funded African-American education in the South. He funded a program to construct elementary and secondary schools in any willing black community. Over a 20-year period, 5,000 schools were constructed in the South, 90 percent of all buildings in which Mississippi’s black youngsters received an education.

Not bad for a generous man who had no need for recognition, just a desire to help needy people. Now another generation of people will know what he did, in such a humble and modest way, by insisting on closing his foundation after his death and opposing the attachment of his name to so many projects.

Bravo.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Nixon Was Firmly in Control … Until Dark Clouds Began Forming

A signed Richard Nixon photograph sold for $657.25 in February 2006.

By Jim O’Neal

By the time 1972 rolled around, the presidential campaign was really a story about President Nixon’s growing invincibility. In the summer, every poll gave him about 60 percent of the vote and even his tremendous financial advantage – $60 million vs. $25 million for the Dems – had little to do with the probable outcome.

Nixon was elected four years earlier on a tide of protest against the Vietnam War, but ending it seemed to be taking an eternity. 17,000 more Americans had been killed while he was trying, but by the beginning of 1972, he had reduced U.S. troop levels from 550,000 to 139,000. Importantly, the Pentagon’s weekly casualty list of 300 had dropped to zero by Sept. 21, 1972.

The sum of Nixon’s skills was a united party, led by a nominee who was now identified as the candidate of peace and détente. He had two superfluous opponents for the GOP nomination and one, Paul “Pete” McClosky from California, became an arcane trivia answer by winning 1 delegate while Nixon swept up all the rest … 1,347.

The convention stagecraft was awesome and Nixon had eliminated all the suspense by announcing his intention to keep Spiro Agnew on the ticket as his VP. (Agnew won 1,345 votes vs. one for TV journalist David Brinkley; NBC staffers quickly started wearing “Brinkley for Vice President” buttons as a joke.)

This marked the fifth time Nixon had been on the ballot – in 1952 and 1956 for VP, and in 1960, 1968 and 1972 for president. This tied FDR, who had one VP (1920) and four straight as president (1932-1944). Ronald Reagan chaired the convention and Nelson Rockefeller put Nixon’s name in nomination. GOP speakers touted their unity and hammered at the disarray on the other side.

In 1972, campaign material included George Wallace license plates.

The Democrats were still absorbed in savage internecine feuds and the battle to head the party was a melee. George McGovern very adroitly managed to make himself a dark horse to keep the glaring national spotlight off his nascent campaign. In the Florida primary, facing 11 presidential candidates, George Wallace was the big winner as a surprise candidate. He loudly crowed, “We beat all the face cards in the Democratic deck!”

By the middle of May, Edmund Muskie was out of it and the marathon was narrowing to a three-way contest between Wallace, McGovern and Hubert Humphrey. Then in May 1972 while in Maryland, Wallace was hit by a brick in Frederick, eggs in Hagerstown and six bullets in Laurel. He won both Michigan and Maryland, but for him, wounded and paralyzed, it was all over.

Then Humphrey proceeded to destroy McGovern’s chances by pointing out his quixotic stands on Israel, defense spending, welfare, labor law, unemployment compensation, taxation and even Vietnam. In three bruising debates, Humphrey obliterated any chances of McGovern to mount even a mild challenge to Nixon. The election was a blowout, with Nixon winning 49 states and nearly 62 percent of the popular vote.

McGovern rationalized his defeat by saying, “I want every one of you to remember that if we pushed the day of peace just one day closer, then every minute and every hour and every bone-crushing effort in this campaign was worth the entire effort.” I suspect he died on Oct. 21, 2012, still believing these self-delusional words.

At about the same time, the seeds of Watergate had been planted. A small unobtrusive dark cloud was forming somewhere in the atmosphere, and it would end up unraveling the entire Nixon presidency and legacy. The arc of fate is long and never-ending.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].