Hon. Samuel C.T. Dodd, one of the ablest lawyers Pennsylvania has produced, is general solicitor of the Standard and resides in New York. His father, the venerable Levi Dodd, established the first Sunday-school and was president of the second company that bored for oil at Franklin, the birthplace of his son in 1836. Young Samuel learned printing, graduated from Jefferson College in 1857, studied law with James K. Kerr and was admitted to the Venango Bar in August of 1859. His brilliant talents, conscientious application and legal acquirements quickly won him a leading place among the successful jurists of the state. During a practice of nearly twenty-two years in the courts of the district and commonwealth he stood in the front rank of his profession. He served with credit in the Constitutional Convention of 1873, framing some of its most important provisions. He traveled abroad and wrote descriptions of foreign lands so charming they might have come from Washington Irving and N. P. Willis. His selection by the Standard Oil-Trust in 1881 as its general solicitor was a marked recognition of his superior abilities. The position, one of the most prominent and responsible to which a lawyer can attain, demanded exceptional qualifications. How capably it has been filled the records of all legal matters concerning the Standard abundantly demonstrate. Mr. Dodd’s profound knowledge of corporation-law, eminent sense of justice, forensic skill, rare tact and clear brain have steered the great company safely and honorably through many suits involving grave questions of right and millions of money. The papers he prepared organizing the Standard Trust have been the models for all such documents since they left his desk. Terse logic, sound reasoning, pointed analysis and apposite expression distinguish his legal opinions and arguments, combining the vigor of a Damascus blade with the beauty of an epic. He is a delightful conversationalist, sincere friend and prudent counsellor, kindly, affable and thoroughlythoroughly upright. His home, brightened by a loving wife and devoted family, is singularly happy. Amid the cares and anxieties incident to professional life he has cultivated his fine literary-taste, writing magazine-articles and wooing the muses at intervals of leisure only too far apart. He has the honor of writing the first poem on petroleum that ever appeared in print. It was a rich parody on Byron’s “Isles of Greece” and was published in the spring of 1860, as follows:

One of those few and rare occasions upon which John D. Rockefeller is prevailed upon to address an audience was last March in New York, at a social gathering of the Young Men’s Bible Class of the Fifth-Avenue Baptist-Church. Much that he said was extremely interesting. In laying down many excellent precepts he brought forth several lessons from the experiences of his early life. By references to his first ledger, as he called it, which was nothing more than a small paper-covered memorandum-book, he explained how he managed to save money even on a small salary. The little book contained the first items of his receipts and expenditures when he first began to earn money. To judge from the care with which he handled this reminder of his early struggles, Mr. Rockefeller was in earnest when he intimated that it would require a fortune to purchase it. His address, purely informal and conversational, was warmly applauded by his hearers and commended by the press. Its practical wisdom and the light it throws upon the early life of a most successful man entitle it to careful preservation. Mr. Rockefeller said, as reported by the New-York Tribune:

Let me say that it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be here to-night. Although I cannot make you a speech, I have brought with me to show you young men a little book—a book, I think, which may interest you. It is the first ledger I kept. I was trained in business affairs and how to keep a ledger. The practice of keeping a little personal ledger by young men just starting in business and earning money and requiring to learn its value is, I think, a good one. In the first struggle to get a footing—and if you feel as I did I am sorry for you, although I would not be without the memory of that struggle—I kept my accounts in this book, also some memoranda of little incidents that seemed to me important. In after-years I found that book and brought it to New York. It is more than forty-two years since I wrote what it contains. I call it Ledger A, and now I place the greatest value upon it. I have thought that it would be a little help to some of you young men to read one or two extracts from this ledger. [Mr. Rockefeller then produced from his pocket, carefully enveloped in paper-wrapping, the ledger to which he referred, and continued his remarks]:

When I found this book recently I thought it had no cover, because it had writing upon its back. I had utilized the cover to write upon. In those days I was economical, even with paper. When I read it through it brought to my mind remembrances of the care with which I used to record my little items of receipts and disbursements, matters which many of you young men are rather careless over. I believe it is a religious duty to get all the money you can fairly and honestly; to keep all you can and to give away all you can. I think that is a problem that you are all familiar with. I have told you before what pleasure this little book gives me. I dare not let you read it through, because my children, who have read it, say that I did not spell tooth-brush correctly. [Laughter.] But you know we have made great progress in our spelling and I suppose some changes have taken place since those days. [Renewed laughter.] I have not seen this book for twenty-five years. It does not look like a modern ledger, does it? But you could not get that book from me for all the modern ledgers in New York, nor for all that they would bring. It almost brings tears to my eyes when I read over this little book, and it fills me with a sense of gratitude that I cannot express. It shows largely what I received and what I paid out during my first years of business. It shows that from September twenty-sixth, 1855, until January first, 1856, I received $50. Out of that I paid my washerwoman and the lady I boarded with, and saved a little money to put away. I am not ashamed to read it over to you.

Among other things I find that I gave a cent to the Sunday-school every Sunday. That is not a very large sum, is it? But that was all the money I had to give for that particular object. I was also giving to several other religious objects. What I could afford to give I gave regularly, as I was taught to do, and it has been a pleasure to me all my life to do so.

I had a large increase in my revenue the next year. It went up to $25 a month. I began to be a capitalist and, had I regarded myself then as we regard capitalists now, I ought to have felt like a criminal because I had so much money. But we had no trusts or monopolies then. [Laughter.] I paid my own bills and always had a little something to give away, and the happiness of saving some. In fact, I am not so independent now as I was then. It is true I could not secure the most fashionable cut of clothing. I remember I bought mine then of a Jew. [Laughter.] He sold me clothing cheap, clothing such as I could pay for, and it was a great deal better than buying clothing that I could not pay for. I did not make any obligations I could not meet. I lived within my means, and my advice to you young men is to do just the same.

Dr. Faunce has just told you that all young men who come to this church are welcome and are never asked to whom they belong or where they came from. But there is just one question I would like to ask. I would like to know how many of you come from the city and how many come from the country. (Mr. Rockerfeller asked, as a personal favor, if all those present in the room who came from the country would raise their right hand. Fully three-quarters of the number did so.) Now, what a story that tells!

To my mind there is something unfortunate in being born in a city. You have not had the struggles in the city that we have had who were reared in the country. Don’t you notice how the men from the country keep crowding you out here—you who have wealthy fathers? These young men from the country are turning things around and are taking your city. We men from the country are willing to do more work. We were prepared by our experience to do hard work. I remember a little time ago I was in the country and saw a carpenter placing mineral-wool under the roof of a city servant’s bedroom, so that the man should not feel the heat of the summer or hear the patter of the rain-drops on the roof. I could not at the time help recalling the experience of my boyhood, when I slept under a roof. While I could not see the shingles, I remember I could peep through the cracks in them. It was pretty hot in the summer up there, too, I can tell you. But I think I was better for all that sort of experience, for having been reared in the country in that sturdy, practical way, and my heart is sometimes full of sadness as I contemplate the condition of the number of young fellows in this city whom I happen to know well.

They are in the embarrassing position that their fathers have great sums of money, and those boys have not a ghost of a chance to compete with you who come from the country and who want to do something in the world. You are in training now to shortly take the places of those young men. I suppose you cannot realize how many eyes are upon you and how great is the increasing interest that is taken in you. You may not think that, when you are lonely and find it difficult to get a footing. But it is true that, in a place like this, true interest is taken in you. When I left the school-house I came into a place similar to this, where I associated with people whom it was good to know. Nothing better could have happened to me.

I spoke just now of the struggle for success. What is success? Is it money? Some of you have all the money you need to provide for your wants. Who is the poorest man in the world? I tell you, the poorest man I know of is the man who has nothing but money—nothing else in the world upon which to devote his ambition and thought. That is the sort of man I consider to be the poorest in the world. Money is good if you know how to use it.

Now, let me leave this little word of counsel for you. Keep a little ledger, as I did. Write down in it what you receive, and do not be ashamed to write down what you pay away. See that you pay it away in such a manner that your father or mother may look over your book and see just what you did with your money. It will help you to save money, and that you ought to do. When I spoke of a poor man with money I spoke against the poverty of that man who has no affection for anything else, or thought for anything else but money. That kind of a man does not help his own character, nor does he build up the character of another.

Before I leave you I will read a few items from my ledger. I find in looking over it that I was saving money all this time, and in the course of a few years I had saved $1,000. Now, as to some of my expenses. I see that from November twenty-fourth, 1855, to April, 1856, I paid for clothing $9.09. I see also, here, another item which I am inclined to think is extravagant, because I remember I used to wear mittens. The item is a pair of fur-gloves, for which I paid $2.50. In the same period, I find I gave away $5.58. In one month I gave to foreign-missions ten cents; to the mite-society thirty cents, and there is also a contribution to the Five-Points Mission. I was not living then in New York, but I suppose I felt that it was in need of help, so I sent up twelve cents to the mission. Then to the venerable teacher of my class I gave thirty-five cents to make him a present. To the poor people of the church I gave ten cents at this time. In January and February following I gave ten cents more and a further ten cents to the foreign-missions. Those contributions, small as they were, brought me into direct contact with philanthropic work, and with the beneficial work and aims of religious institutions, and I have been helped thereby greatly all my life. It is a mistake for a man who wishes for happiness and to help others to wait until he has a fortune before giving to deserving objects. [Great applause.]

And this exemplary citizen, who in his youth and poverty formed the habit of systematic benevolence, who befriends the poor, who dispenses charity with a bountiful hand, who helps young men better their condition, who gives millions for education and religion, who believes in the justice of God and the rights of man, who has woven the raveled skeins of a weakened industry into the world’s grandest business-enterprise, assassins of character picture as a cold-blooded oppressor, a base conspirator, a “devourer of widows’ houses,” an abettor of larceny and instigator of arson! “Oh, Shame! where is thy blush?”

Although the Standard pays the highest wages in the world and has never had a serious strike in its grand army of forty-thousand men, not one cent of a reduction was ordered during the panic. No works stopped and no employés were turned adrift to beg or starve. On the contrary, improvements and additions were made continually, the force of workmen was augmented, cash was paid for everything bought, no claims remained unsettled and nobody had to wait an hour for money justly due. These are points for the toiling masses, whom prejudice against big corporations sometimes misleads, to understand and consider before accepting the creed that wealth and dishonor are synonymous, that each is the creature of the other and both are twin-links of the same sausage.

The Oil-City Blizzard, itself as lively as a glycerine-explosion, in a spasm of dynamite-enthusiasm loaded up and fired off this eccentricity:

When the Oil-City Derrick had its circus with the Allegheny-Valley Railroad it fell to my lot to write up most of the incidents of the conflict. Occasionally a bit of doggerel like this hit the popular fancy: