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
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.