The gospel according to “St. John”
Subject(s): Charities, Clergy, Corruption, Grinding machines, Missions, Rockefeller, John D. (John Davison), 1839-1937, Standard Oil Company
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John D. Rockefeller, holding a bag labeled “Foreign $ Missions” close to his side, sits on millstones labeled “Standard Oil Millstone” grinding or squeezing money from people caught between the two stones. With his left hand he offers a copy of the Bible to a native man. A diminutive figure below, labelled “Jr,” is Rockefeller’s son and namesake, who methodically was assisting and assuming projects of the trust magnate.
Comments and Context
The depiction of John D. Rockefeller with a halo of gold as a wizened, cynical hypocrite in Joseph Keppler’s cartoon is reinforced by the “benediction” proffered by his son over the native; and the quotation-marks around the sarcastic “St. John.” Keppler was being purely sarcastic, or referring to Manhattan’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the construction of which was one of Rockefeller’s projects; or both.
Rockefeller father and son indeed supported many churches and charitable missions. Both teetotalers, they underwrote many societies and movements — in the case of Rockefeller Junior, more political in nature. In college he studied Karl Marx and later contributed major sums to the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Both men were ecumenical Protestants, attending and supporting Baptist, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian churches. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine — begun in 1892 and still unfinished, as is the case with major European cathedrals, and measured as the world’s sixth-largest church in size — was a Rockefeller project; the nearby Riverside Church, overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights, is another. It is nicknamed “Rockefellers’ Church.” The former is Anglican/Episcopalian; the latter is Baptist/Congregationalist/United Church of Christ.
Keppler’s cartoon makes references only to the church-oriented foreign missions portion of the Rockefellers’ largesse. Of course it also make reference to the source of Rockefeller’s fortune — Standard Oil and associated businesses. Puck and other muckraking journals maintained their on religious fervor in condemning the methods of “malefactors of great wealth” (in Theodore Roosevelt’s parlance)
Collection
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Creation Date
1905-05-03
Creator(s)
Period
U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)
Repository
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Page Count
1
Record Type
Image
Resource Type
Rights
These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.
Citation
Cite this Record
Chicago:
The gospel according to “St. John”. [May 3, 1905]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278098. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956. The gospel according to “St. John”. [3 May. 1905]. Image.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. August 3, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278098.
APA:
Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956., [1905, May 3]. The gospel according to “St. John”.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o278098.
Cite this Collection
Chicago:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. August 3, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs.
APA:
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-prints-and-photographs.
