With Tax Day coming next week, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the Brothers Rockefeller — the powerful founders of the Standard Oil “trust” — and their efforts to avoid both income taxes, and, answering for their unfair business practices.

When I first saw the above the above Robert Minor, Jr. cartoon, years ago, I thought it was merely a funny visual joke involving the rich evading taxes. Then, in the recent History Channel series, The Men Who Built America, it was shown how millionaire monopolist John D. Rockefeller spent weeks as a fugitive, constantly on the move, running from a subpoena for him to explain his business practices before a Congressional Committee. Which reminded me of this cartoon…

Except that, “The Fugitive Oil Magnate” is not about John D., but rather, is about his younger brother, William Rockefeller. Depicted above & below, from the February 1913 edition of Cartoons Magazine, is William’s own run from the law, in his futile efforts to resist any transparency any his business practices, as Congress wanted to speak to him about the manipulation of money markets (or, the “money trust”).

Cartoons below by Ole May, Hruska, and Billy DeBeck.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

And since we brought up John D. Rockefeller, we might as well revisit the below cartoon involvinh him, and his attempted tax evasion. Cartoon by Richard Keith Culver, from April 1914.

Doug Wheeler

financial reforms