The American Uriah Heep

John D. Rockefeller appears as Uriah Heep from the Dickens novel David Copperfield. Two logbooks on the floor at his feet are titled “Competitor Business” and “Rebate Schedules,” and hanging on the wall is a paper that states “The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth.” Caption: “Men, I want to tell you that systematic saving and self-denial, with a good deal of hard work, form the foundation for every large fortune. That has been my experience.”–John D. Rockefeller

Comments and Context

Contemporary Americans, those who have not read Charles Dickens’s classic novel David Copperfield, might not be familiar with the name or character of Uriah Heep. Some people might know of the epithet, a harsh denigration of someone as “a” Uriah Heep. Almost certainly, everyone has encountered someone with the personality traits and deficiencies of Dickens’s memorable character.

In the book, Uriah Heep was a law clerk who schemed his way up his office’s ladder until he was undone by his own trickery; he is branded as a sycophant, an insincere flatterer, forever adopting a servile air of exaggerated humility. Oftentimes someone who refers to a Uriah Heep will stoop the shoulders, look plaintive and wring the hands.

Many people in everyday life, and in other contexts and conversations, are referred to as a Uriah Heep. Cartoonist Udo J. Keppler and many reformers of the day were cynical when business titans and trust moguls spoke, or wrote in memoirs, about love and compassion. Or like the dry goods millionaire John Wanamaker, who served as postmaster general in the Administration of Benjamin Harrison, identifying himself frequently as a Sunday School teacher, and arranging political corruption the other six days of the week.

Andrew Carnegie endowed libraries; J. P. Morgan funded museums; and so forth. John D. Rockefeller used to toss pennies to street children from his carriage, and he uttered the self-effacing words inn the cartoon’s caption to reporters in Chicago in 1906.

Cynics, including Keppler, a young judge named Kennesaw Mountain Landis (later the power Commissioner of Baseball), and millions of Americans, saw the Uriah Heep tendencies in Rockefeller’s pious words. He was being sued for the offenses of his Standard Oil empire. Rockefeller claimed that he ended rebate schemes when the Interstate Commerce Act was passed in 1887, and subsequent to the Elkins Act of 1903 and the Hepburn Act of 1906; but abundant evidence showed otherwise, and that Standard Oil’s tentacles engaged in elaborate schemes to hide its malfeasance.

The richest man in America, by many accounts, and ruthless in myriad ways, predictably — as per Uriah Heep — on the witness stand transformed himself into a doddering, forgetful, frail man (helped by his distinctive premature bald pate). Confronted by seven federal and six state anti-trust suits, Rockefeller acted bewildered, frustrating judge and prosecutors alike. They called Rockefeller and his enterprises no better than common street thieves. At one point the rich man Rockefeller actually fled and hid anonymously in a New England cabin.

Such were the theatrics of the Standard Oil investigations — from Muckraker Ida Tarbell to Judge Landis and beyond (Rockefeller lived until 1937, aged 97) — and Keppler’s characterization truly did evoke the “original” Uriah Heep. Observers could deal with thievery, no matter how grand; but hypocrisy about it was odious.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1907-08-07

Creator(s)

Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956

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

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation