The Ford Family
There isn't much doubt about the financial endurance of the Ford family, because the holdings of Henry and Edsel Ford were transferred only after 1947 to the present heirs.
There isn't much doubt about the financial endurance of the Ford family, because the holdings of Henry and Edsel Ford were transferred only after 1947 to the present heirs.
Lundberg - The-Rich-and-the-Super-Rich-by-Ferdinand-Lundberg
In many companies it is apparently thought to be one of the perquisites of officers to trade tip and down in a percentage of their holdings, thus incurring low capital-gains taxes while getting more income so their wives and children won't fall behind on country-club dues.
With such factors in mind the monthly SEC reports on holdings have been selectively checked with a view to updating the TNEC data, thus reassuring anxious critics that our material is all fresh and new. But, in general, in-and-out trading by mere company officers and directors has been ignored here except when it has seemed to be of significant proportions or by significant officers.
Attention has been concentrated pretty much on the original TNEC list and the 1964 Fortune list of the largest nonfinancial companies, although there is also presented an extensive listing of control groups in other well-known companies.
As to the method used in examining the SEC reports, which embrace thousands of companies and tens of thousands of individuals: The reports have been closely scrutinized in their entirety from 1960, inclusive, through 1965. As every transaction registered requires that the net remaining holding be given, one is assured of what the latest position is, confirming or not the TNEC finding at a distance of about twenty-five years. In this way, too, late-coming names of big holders (if they buy or sell) are brought into view.
Where significant large holdings have not turned up in this 1960 decade, a special tracing backward by individual companies was made prior to 1960 to ascertain the latest date when a net position was given for some family member (thus showing the continued presence of the family).
In certain companies the holdings were traced back to 1945 or to the point that yielded the latest total holding. Such a complete tracing was made of all the major Rockefeller, Mellon, Ford, Du Pont and Rosenwald properties; it was not necessary in the case of others because their presence is fully revealed by the data of the 1960's in almost all cases.
What may seem to be a defect in this method, and perhaps it is a genuine defect, is that by stopping the retroactive survey with 1960 we won't pick up any new investments made by either new or old wealth-holders prior to 1960. But the objective here is not to show the entire investment position of either new or old wealth-holders or to trace all these elements from one company to another in such cases in which they have transferred investment allegiance. All I am trying to do is to show who is rich now and who is a big newcomer to riches by presenting some large samples.
Nor am I trying to develop in detail the names and holdings of every one of 90,000 or more millionaires. Limited space makes it necessary to confine attention to the cream of the crop.
In the case of some of the new companies, I have examined the original prospectus filed with the SEC, as required by law, to ascertain any significant changes in holdings and identities. Particular attention was given to the new public utility operating companies organized out of the old holding companies, because as matters stood in the earlier chapter we tended to lose sight of the owners in the shuffle. The question is: Are they still there? If not, who has taken their place?
We are initially armed with the fact that these companies aren't owned by just anybody out of 190 million-odd in the population. Even the most tenuous kind of ownership puts the owner into about 10 per cent of the populace. And any holding of any kind worth minimally $60,000 net as of 1953 places him within 1. 6 per cent of the population. The holdings with which we are most concerned are limited to a circle consisting of 0. 11 of 1 per cent of the population.
Thus narrowed, our attention is focused directly on the biggest American proprietors-- the magnates, the big shots.
The SEC requires that reports of a person's entire interest be made if there is any change. in any holding in which he has a beneficial interest. This means that his personal holdings, those in which he has an indirect beneficial interest as from a trust or family holding company, those held by a spouse, those for which he acts as trustee or custodian, must all be reported if more than 100 shares are bought or sold in any part of
the holding, direct or indirect. A good picture is therefore given of particular beneficial interests.
While such reporting is for individuals--except when made by a closed-end or family investment company--the holdings of big financial groups are revealed through different transactions on behalf of various members of a family.
It is true that this method will not reveal the holdings of an entire family group in a particular company unless every member of the group engages in transactions, as they sometimes do. But we already know the names of the big family groups so that if we see one member altering his investment position it may be deduced that the others are still solvent but are merely not interested in buying or selling.
We cannot tell in every case who is better off or worse off. A family group may have closed out a very large holding and diversified its ownership in smaller slices in many companies. The new diversified position may have improved its position or not. In dollar values, owing to the general inflation of prices, probably all positions have been improved. At the very top, among Mellons, Du Pouts, Rockefellers, Rosenwalds, Fords and Pews, we know that relative positions have been improved because their companies have outperformed the economy, sometimes by very wide margins. Comparisons can be made here by relating gross sales to gross national product, gross income to national income and net income to net national income.
The reports are set down by the SEC in the following general form:
John Doe
Transaction
? X shares
Net Holding
X shares
X2 do.
X2 do.
X3 do.
X4 do.
X5 do.
X6 do.
X7 do.
X8 do.
Trust
Savings fund
Employer's fund
Wife or family
As trustee
As custodian
Investment company
Partnership
X1 do.
X2 do.
X3 do.
X4 do.
X5 do
X6 do.
X7 do.
X8 do.
The plus-or-minus, indicating a purchase or sale, is credited in the SEC report to whatever individual or instrumentality did the buying or selling.
It would require too much space here to report individual by individual in this way. A somewhat different form of presentation has been adopted to convey the same information.
Our findings will be set forth as much as possible in semi-tabular form. Although share totals will be given, they will not be translated into market values. This task may be left as an exercise for the interested reader, who will be given the 1965 prices for the biggest companies.
As a foretaste of what we are after let us ask, for example, how do matters stand in the late 1960's with J. Paul Getty? Is he still rich? The SEC Official Summary, September, 1965, informs us that he personally owned 4,610,217 shares of the Getty Oil Company and was an indirect participant in trusts with 7,948,272 shares--a total of 12,558,489 shares or about 80 per cent. At a price of 34-7/8 for Getty Oil on November 22, 1965, this holding had a market value of nearly $438 million; in late 1967, $1. 2 billion.
This figure by no means represents everything owned by Getty, who is interested directly and indirectly in many other companies, but it does satisfy us that he is still very rich, probably worth more than a billion. And that is all we are concerned with. For many years, he and his companies have been steadily adding to their holdings. The SEC
report for July, 1965, showed Getty Oil owned 4,077,240 shares of Mission Development, a different company. The report for December, 1963, showed that Getty Oil, after buying 21,169 shares, owned 2,748,883 shares or 63 per cent of Tidewater Oil Company, in which J. Paul Getty through a trust fund owned now only 4,225 shares. He owned none directly, having exchanged his earlier Tidewater stock for Getty Oil stock. The report for June, 1964, showed that Mission Corporation in turn, after buying 8,500 shares, owned 3,431,280 shares of Skelly Oil Company. These are all majority ownerships.
We could go on in this way analyzing the multifarious holdings and interholdings of J. Paul Getty but we would never get to the bottom of it in any event. For Getty, like many others, is a big foreign operator and unquestionably does not have all his holdings registered on the American record.
Getty is clearly officially certified as still in possession of vast wealth. But we must continue, as there may be gnawing doubts about others, such as Rockefellers and Pews, Pitcairns, Do Ponts, McCormicks and Rosenwalds, Clarks and Dukes. 1
In requiring reports of a beneficial interest in trust funds and of holdings as a trustee, the law reveals a large portion of the social security system of the rich. It is an excellent system, and provides much security for its beneficiaries. But in considering it, one wonders about the oft-heard thesis of many conservative and ultra-conservative spokesmen and newspapers that the federal Social Security System, the Family Welfare System and the trade-union system all carry great danger of destroying the characters of the participants. They might, among other things, become mercenary or lazy.
The rich themselves very evidently do not believe that being the beneficiaries of huge trust funds has undermined their characters, or that establishing trust funds for their children will distort the children's characters. No case has come to light where the children of the wealthy have been left penniless for their own benefit. All known cases of disinheritance are punitive, because the children have displeased the parents. Why, if drawing benefits without labor from a big trust fund does not destroy character, will drawing benefits in old age from Social Security or a pension system do so? Why would a true Welfare State be injurious to the general public when a private welfare system of trust funds is not apparently injurious to its limited number of beneficiary heirs?
The Du Ponts Today
As it is never wrong to begin with the Du Ponts in any discussion of American wealth, let us begin with this fabulous clan, leveling our fundamental question: Where are they now, financially speaking? The evidence strongly suggests that they are still massively concentrated in Christiana Securities Company, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, General Motors, Remington Arms and other enterprises of the kind they were partial to in the 1930's. They stand approximately where they were shown to be in the TNEC study. They have neither gone elsewhere, suffered diminution, become bored with property ownership nor disappeared. Taxes have not exterminated them or even visibly shaken them.
Some revelatory SEC reports by members of the Du Pont family in the 1960's are, incompletely, as follows (dates refer to monthly issues of the Official Summary of Security Transactions and Holdings):
Christiana Securities Company
Irene? e du Pont, Jr
Trust
Price range 1965: $232-$315
Shares Date Reported
150,460 March, 1965
22,322
A. Felix du Pont, Jr.
Trust
L. du Pont Copeland
Trust
Crawford H. Greenewalt
Trust
S. Hallock du Pont
William Winder Laird
R. R. M. Carpenter, Jr.
Trusts
Pierre S. du Pont
Lammot du Pont Copeland,
through Delaware Realty
and Investment, merged
with Christiana
20,510
92,132
252,657 August, 1964
100
52,848
4,410
140,000 March, 1964
88,546 August, 1963
11,520 February, 1963
130,995
29,472 October, 1961
52,299*
*Shares of Delaware Realty and Investment
These holdings vary from year to year. Some of the Du Ponts are, from time to time, fairly active traders in a marginal percentage of their holdings. And while they do not reflect the entire holding of the Du Pont family in Christiana Securities, for which the TNEC study showed the family owning 73. 958 per cent of common and 58. 541 of preferred prior to its absorption of Delaware Realty (of which the family owned 83. 985 per cent), what these deals since 1960 do positively show is that the Du Pont family is today still ensconced where it was found to be by the TNEC inquiry. 2
As for E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the world's largest chemical company, the SEC reports show the following incomplete recent holdings:
E. I. du Pont de Nemours Price range 1965: $225-1/4--$261
Shares Date Reported
Christiana Securities
Crawford H. Greenewalt
Co-trustee
L. du Pont Copeland
Andelot, Inc.
Trust
Irene? e du Pont, Jr. ,
Trusts
Pierre S. du Pont
William du Pont, Jr. ,
Trusts
Irene? e du Pont, Jr. , Trust
Henry B. du Pont
Emile F. du Pont
13,416,120 February, 1965
11,710
4,000
69,297 November, 1963
40,668
86,072
7,562 August, 1963
20,000
2,926 March, 1963
8,000 February, 1963
1,261,888
143,864 September, 1962
12,407 September, 1961
8,766 March, 1961
These are by no means the only transaction dates for Du Ponts in stock of Christiana Securities and E. I. du Pont de Nemours in the early 1960's. They merely represent some of the latest positions.
A more thorough disclosure of the identities of some leading Du Pont stockholders was made in the Monthly Summary for June 11, 1949, on the occasion of a stock split in E. I. du Pont de Nemours. Then the holdings of Du Ponts who were officers and directors and holders of more than 10 per cent were as follows:
Common Shares
Donaldson Brown, married to
Greta du Pont Barksdale
Broseco Corp. (Brown Securities Corporation) 20,000
J. Thompson Brown
W. S. Carpenter, Jr
Christiana Securities
Lammot Copeland
Trust
Delaware Realty & Investment
Emile F. du Pont
Wife
Eugene du Pont
Henry B. du Pont
Henry F. du Pont
Irene? e du Pont
Lammot du Pont
P. S. du Pont III
Pierre S. du Pont
C. H. Greenewalt
Lammot Copeland through
Delaware Realty
Emile F. du Pont
Eugene du Pont
Henry B. du Pont through
Delaware Realty
Henry F. du Pont
P. S. du Pont III
Pierre S. du Pont
Trust
49,096
47,256
12,199,200
110,680
92,572
1,217,920
2,248
180
203,212
10,844
173,000
12,000
63,836
6,940
32,896
4,236
$4. 50 series preferred
shares
16,256
15
6,405
16,256
14,184
11
34
1,611
The way titles stood at the end of 1965 was as follows: Members of the Du Pont family own more than 75 per cent of Christiana Securities, which in turn owns at least 29 per cent of the stock of E. I. du Pont de Nemours. Individual Du Ponts separately own additional E. I. du Pont stock or are beneficiaries of trust funds, so that the entire family holding exceeds 44 per cent in gigantic E. I. du Pont de Nemours.
E. I. du Pont de Nemours itself, until recently, owned 23 per cent of the stock of General Motors Corporation, saleswise the world's largest industrial company. After it and other Du Pont holding companies and trust funds were ordered by a federal court to distribute this stock to individual equity owners, each owner of each share of E. I. du Pont de Nemours received 1. 36 shares of General Motors. Upon receiving their share of the GM distribution, Christiana Securities and other Du Pont family funds (selling some to pay capital gains taxes. ) passed the GM shares they received on to individual Du Ponts.
The question now is: How much General Motors stock remains in the hands of individual Du Ponts? Assuming that they sold none since the court order took effect in 1962, on the face of it they still hold at least 17. 25 per cent of General Motors outstanding stock. This minimal figure is arrived at by assuming the payment of a 25 per cent capital gains tax on the entire holding in GM, an overgenerous assumption because the holding was not all interpreted as capital gains.
However, the Du Pont company management announced that, going beyond the court order, members of the family closely associated with the Du Pont company management would voluntarily dispose of their General Motors stock, but such sale would hardly bring holdings below 17. 25 per cent because no tax at all was required on the GM shares distributed to individuals by E. I. du Pont de Nemours.
The SEC reports do not show holdings for Du Ponts in other companies where they are not officers, do not own more than 10 per cent individually, or have not engaged in stock transactions. But that they are interested personally in other companies is shown by the September, 1965, Official Summary where Henry B. du Pont is reported holding 6,000 shares in Remington Arms after selling 500 shares. E. I. du Pont de Nemours owns 60 per cent of Remington common and 99. 6 per cent of the preferred. Transactions were not traced for this study in companies like U. S. Rubber and Phillips Petroleum, where Du Pont interests are represented on the boards of directors.
But in Remington Arms another big old-line family holding was shown in the December, 1961, report for M. Hartley Dodge, son of the founder, who was reported as retaining 510,787 shares after selling 9,072 shares to other members of his family. Mr. Dodge, son-in-law of William Rockefeller, held 50,000 additional Remington Arms shares through a holding company and 28,407 shares in a trust fund. (The SEC reports provide similar information on the other old-line wealthy families: Phipps, Clark, Danforth, Knudsen, Baker, Anderson-Clayton, Dollar, Fisher, Heinz, Swift, Prince, Pew, Harriman, Block, Ryerson, Pitcairn, Hanna, Levis, Warburg, Kresge, Timken, Armour, Grace, Bedford, Firestone, Rosenwald, Colgate, Peet, Milbank, Crocker, Jennings, Olmsted, Cudahy, Havemever, Cabot, Lehman, Woolworth, Gimbel, Jones- Laughlin, Candler, Rosengarten, Hochschild, Wrigley, Rosenstiel, Reynolds, and others. )
With very few exceptions, and a few additions, the roll that was called in the formidable TNEC study is echoed and reechoed today in the SEC monthly reports.
What has been proved in these foregoing pages? Not very much, one would be forced to agree: Merely that the Du Ponts are still alive and thriving and are richer and more powerful today than they were in 1940. And one can predict that they will continue to grow richer and more powerful as long as the continually amended New Deal, Square Deal, New Frontier and Great Society politico-economic synthesis prevails.
The Ford Family
There isn't much doubt about the financial endurance of the Ford family, because the holdings of Henry and Edsel Ford were transferred only after 1947 to the present heirs. Those who believe they may be suffering extinction under the impact of metaphorically brutal taxes or other forces may gain reassurance from recent records.
The Fords did not turn up in the SEC reports until September, 1956, when it was shown that Benson Ford held 1,025,915 shares of Ford Motor Class B stock and Henry Ford II held 1,055,346 of the Class B. The Class B stock, all of which went to the Fords, holds 40 per cent of the voting power. The way this Class B holding came to the SEC record was explained as follows: "Reported that by the terms of a trust created by a relative, Benson Ford and Henry Ford II had in common with two others an option expiring 6/26/56 to acquire 15000 shares of Class B stock. Benson Ford, on 6/20/56, by gift, delivered an assignment of his portion (3750 shares) of the option. On 6/26/56 Henry Ford II, for a consideration, delivered an assignment of his portion (3750 shares) of the option. "
In the February, 1957, Official Summary it was reported that Henry Ford II disposed of 9,000 shares of Class B and in September, 1957, it was shown that he disposed of 100,000 shares and acquired 100,000 shares of the common. The March, 1959, report showed him disposing of 19,415 Class B shares in a private sale and that he had established a holding company that owned 3,284 shares; he retained 815,901 Class B shares at this point. By September, 1959, he had reduced his common holdings to 90,500 shares.
As of September, 1964, Henry Ford II no longer held any common in his own name but did hold 43,846 shares through a trust.
In March, 1964, it was reported that he now owned 1,319,576 Class B shares, held 75,000 B shares in trust, 12,000 B shares through holding companies and was trustee for 316,398 B shares. He now held 99,846 common -shares in a trust.
In January, 1962, it was reported that Benson Ford had reduced his direct holdings of the Class B to 894,147 shares but indirectly held 5,987 in holding companies and 105,456 in trust.
These are the latest positions through 1965 shown for the two men. No positions are shown for William or Charlotte Ford, which presumably were originally identical.
As reported earlier in this account, the Ford family effectively controls the Ford Motor Company and would continue to control it even if a considerable amount of additional common stock were given voting power through sale by the Ford Foundation.
The Mellon Family
The SEC report of March, 1965, showed Richard King Mellon clearing out his last 100 shares of Aluminum Company of America $3. 75 cumulative preferred stock, leaving his holdings in this issue at zero. In July, 1963, however, he was shown as holding 861,200 common shares of Alcoa ($61-1/2-$79-5/8) ) after disposing of 291,552 shares. Alcoa is the world's largest aluminum producer. And in June, 1963, he retained 2,809,922 shares of Gulf Oil ($87-$94-1/4) ) after disposing of 1,943,580. But in July, 1961, he held 4,666,929 shares of Gulf after selling 400,000 shares.
On the basis of the above facts one might reasonably conclude that the Mellons were still flourishing, without taking into account their other manifestations in the form of directorships and the like.
But a more positive showing can be made. In December, 1945, according to SEC reports, some years before six-for-one stock splits, Richard King Mellon owned 1,070,637 shares of Gulf Oil, and his sister, Sarah Mellon Scaife (who died late in 1965) owned 1,041,144 shares. Donaldson Brown of General Motors and Du Pont intermarriage owned 100 shares of Gulf Oil in July, 1947, and held 93,400 through the Broseco Corporation. Alan M. Scaife owned 9,300 shares of Gulf Oil, according to the January 10, 1949, SEC report, and by January, 1950, had raised his holding to 10,300 shares. He owned 30,600 shares in June, 1951.
Down through the years various other transactions in Gulf Oil and Alcoa are shown for this branch of the Mellon family but there is no present point in tracing them; the Mellons are, obviously, still in the ascendant.
The SEC reports show no transactions since 1945 in Gulf Oil or Alcoa for Paul or Ailsa Mellon or transactions for either of these two Mellons in the securities of any companies since 1960. Paul Mellon has been less active than his older cousin in corporate affairs, has more particularly applied himself to foundation and cultural affairs.
The TNEC study found that this clan had a finger in some hundred companies. Even if one had records of recent transactions in them all it would be awkward to set them forth. Exposition is defeated by the very extent of holdings. Recent SEC reports show, for example, that the Consolidation Coal Company, formerly the Pittsburgh Coal Company, of which Richard, Paul, Sarah and Ailsa Mellon owned more than 50 per cent (according to the TNEC study), now holds a 7 per cent interest in the Chrysler Corporation. To trace all such ramifications would be a virtually endless task.
Nor can we undertake to scrutinize all overlappings of large interests. The M. A. Hanna Company is a very large stockholder in Consolidation Coal, the SEC reports, and has heavy investments in many other large companies. H. Barksdale Brown, of the Du Pont clan, owns 3,317 shares of Gulf Oil (SEC, May, 1965); and the Broseco Corporation, instrument of the Brown family, held 666,684 shares on that date. We have already seen that Donaldson Brown, former high General Motors executive, and the Broseco Corporation are heavy stockholders in E. I. du Pont de Nemours. Donaldson Brown and the Broseco Corporation are also substantial stockholders in General Motors (SEC, October, 1950). Down through the years there has been much talk, much of it uninformed, about interlocking directorships. It is more significant that there is a great deal of interlocking ownership among the big interests.
The Pew Family
The TNEC study found the Pew family of Philadelphia in firm ownershipcontrol of the huge Sun Oil Company ($56-5/8-$67-3/4). Recent SEC reports confirm that the family is still in charge with a large dominant interest, 41. 5 per cent. John G. Pew recently held 44,139 shares (September, 1965). Arthur E. Pew, Jr. , held 37,170 shares and a John G. Pew trust 217 shares (December, 1964). Walter C. Pew held 434,214 shares (November, 1964). J. Howard Pew held 794,416 shares (April, 1964). A trust for A. E. Pew, Jr. , held 32,207 shares (November, 1963). J. N. Pew, Jr. , held 647,335 shares (November, 1960). And so on. Whatever the precise Pew ownership position is at any given time, one is obliged to conclude that the Pews are still in full charge of the Sun Oil Company.
The Pitcairn Family
This Pennsylvania family, shown by the TNEC study to dominate the giant Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company ($67-1/4-$85), in the SEC report for August, 1965, was shown to still hold 3,121,296 shares (about 30 per cent) through the Pitcairn Company, the family holding company. Nathan Pitcairn, according to SEC reports (August, 1963) owned 2,912 shares of the Pittston Company ($23-1/8-$32-3/8), big coal, oil and transportation holding company; and the Pitcairn Company held 42,000 shares of Pittston, Whatever else they own the available record showeth not.
The Rockefeller Family
The SEC reports fail to show any dealings in any of the Standard Oil Company stocks by the six leading Rockefellers since 1940. This lacuna is perhaps to be expected, as none of them is a director in the Standard Oil cluster and apparently none individually owns as much as 10 per cent of any Standard Oil stock. As far as the SEC reports show, the Rockefeller position in the Standard Oil group has remained basically unchanged since the time of the TNEC study, although there could have been sales or purchases without their being reflected in the SEC reports. There were indeed sales of Socony in the early 1950's by the late John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
The SEC report for July 10, 1947, showed the Rockefeller Foundation holding 345,902 shares of Standard Oil of Ohio after selling 6,782 shares. Various SEC reports show recent holdings for old-line Standard Oil families such as the Jennings and Bedfords.
But a few dealings in stocks of non-Standard Oil companies of which they are directors are shown in the reports for David and Laurance Rockefeller, suggesting that they still command ample resources. Whether they have sold out any Standard Oil holdings in order to participate in other companies the record does not show, but there is no reason to suppose they have. Apart from their foundation trusteeships the
Rockefeller brothers, with the exception of New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, are currently all directors of Rockefeller Center, Inc. , and Rockefeller Brothers, Inc.
David Rockefeller is chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, second largest in the country, and is known to hold stock in companies in which he holds directorships. The SEC, November, 1962, showed that he held 8,950 shares of B. F. Goodrich stock through trusts. As of 1965 he was a director of Goodrich, Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. , Equitable Life Assurance Society; and chairman of Morningside Heights, Inc. , a real estate development.
Laurance S. Rockefeller is often described as a "venture capitalist" and, in addition to his foundation trusteeships, was in 1965 chairman of Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. , Cancel Bay Plantation, Inc. , Rockefeller Center, Inc. ; director of Filatures et Tissages Africains; chairman of Estate Good Hope and of the Dorado Beach Hotel Corporation. The SEC reports, September, 1961, show that he held 183,274 shares, more than 15 per cent, of the Marquardt Corporation ($8-3/4-$19-1/2 ) after selling 1,300 shares. In Itek Corporation he sold 425 shares as reported by SEC in July, 1965, retaining 152,080 shares ($41). His investment orientation is said to be toward growth enterprises.
Winthrop Rockefeller, a self-described investment manager, has established himself in Arkansas as an extensive operator in land and large-scale agricultural projects. He is a director of the Union National Bank of Little Rock. The most martial of the Rockefellers, he entered the army as a private in 1941 and emerged as a lieutenant colonel; he was with the 77th infantry in the invasion of Guam, Leyte and Okinawa and was decorated with the Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster and the Purple Heart.
If one were to base one's conclusions about the financial status of the Rockefellers from the SEC reports alone, there would be little to tell. A stranger to the scene, with only the SEC reports to go on, would never conclude the Rockefellers amounted to much financially. But we do know from court records that the extensive Standard Oil holdings of John D. I passed to his children, chiefly to John D. II, whose will in turn indicated that he had established trust funds for his six children and many grandchildren. We are thrown back in this case to the TNEC study for basic data.
The family could have divested itself of Standard Oil holdings but, if it had, the fact would have become known through SEC reports or other channels The Rockefellers do not actively associate themselves with the management of the Standard Oil enterprises, apparently allowing them to be run according to standard big-business practices; but the general opinion of investment specialists is that directly and indirectly they hold a decisive veto power over any policy or action of these companies. No conceivable financial syndicate in the world would undertake to challenge the unobtrusive Rockefeller dominance of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), the largest oil company and the largest industrial enterprise by assets of any kind in the world.
My conclusion is that the relative financial position of the Rockefeller family is now the same as or better than it was at the time of the TNEC study. It may be surpassed a bit by the far more numerous Du Ponts; but no single Du Pont appears to be as wealthy as any one of the six oldest Rockefellers. The financial strength of the Du Ponts is spread unevenly among some 250 persons. So, while the collective net worth of the Du Ponts may or may not be somewhat greater than that of the Rockefellers, only the Mellons can compare with the latter individually.
The general strength of the Rockefellers and Mellons, net worth to one side, also appears notably great because it is more widely diversified in high priority enterprises-- especially banking. The Du Ponts seem more deeply entrenched in frontier technology, although neither the Standard Oil companies nor Gulf Oil should be overlooked as huge
science-oriented enterprises. They are more than producers and distributors of petroleum.
But the very vagueness of our recent specific data on the Rockefellers, their failure to trade in and out of their stocks, should in itself be taken as a sign that they preside over enterprises too vast to permit distraction into minor operations.
The Rosenwald Family
About 25 per cent of the stock of Sears, Roebuck and Company, largest merchandising enterprise in the world, is owned by the employees' pension fund. The TNEC report showed the Rosenwald family holding 12. 5 per cent Of the stock, worth now about $500 million. While the Rosenwalds do not engage. in many stock transactions in this company, there have been a few, enough to signal that they are still present. Whether their percentage holding is now greater or less than it was there is no way of determining through the SEC reports. In view of the vast expansion of the company since the war, one would surmise that they had simultaneously added, net, to their holdings The most recent Rosenwald holding was shown in the SEC report for October, 1964, when Edgar B. (Rosenwald) Stern, Jr. , was shown as owning 25,017 shares directly, 1,762 shares as community property and 312,844 shares through a trust fund. He is a director of the company and an occasional trader in the stock. The July 11, 1949, SEC report showed that Julius Rosenwald II held 7,248 shares after selling 750 shares. As neither of these are the major living Rosenwalds, who are Lessing and William, we may safely conclude that the family still maintains a large financial presence in the company, with the management of which they have always been actively associated.
Miscellaneous Large Holdings
Similar large holdings by family and investment groups in major companies can be set forth. In order to economize on space there will now be summarily reported, on the basis of the SEC reports, some concentrated large stockholdings in the largest companies of 1964, mostly of old-line families. The dates are of the SEC monthly reports. Prices are the 1965 range.
Some such holdings are, incompletely, as follows:
Armour ($35-1/4--$53-1/8)
Frederick Henry Prince Trust of 1932
Modestus R. Bauer
William Wood Prince
Shares Date
356,000 Sept. , 1965
136,400 March, 1965
63,625 Jan. , 1965
175,090 Jan. , 1965
180,264
4,7 20
64,075
252,256
323
42,472
108,486
84,87 8
240,5 77
113,432 Sept. , 1965
193,872
Reynolds Metals
David P. Reynolds
($33-5/8--$48)
Trusts
Minor daughters
Davreyn Corp.
R. S. Reynolds, Jr.
Trusts
As custodian
Rireyn Corp.
William G. Reynolds
Trusts
Wilreyn Corp.
Singer
Stephen C. Clark, Jr,
Trusts
($56--$83-1/)4
F. Ambrose Clark
Trusts
259,264 Jan. , 1964
650,110
51,325 Sept. , 1965
35,759
21,896
61,500 Aug. , 1965
123,900
51,563 May, 1965
123,900
143,694 Feb. , 1960
19,500
3,451,913 Dec. , 1963
632,900
9,400
865,752 Nov. , 1963
1,000 Aug. , 1965
876,000
371,800
4,500 Aug. , 1964
1,500
4,682,504
2,711,801 May, 1963
1,797,895 May, 1961
25,000
12,980 July, 1965
4,200
60,000
25,450 Aug. , 1964
2,000
53,592 July, 1960
8,000
1,313,520 July, 1965
36,885
169,7176
1,216
American Sugar
Frederick E. Ossorio
Ossorio family
As custodian
Inland Steel
L. B. Block
Trusts
Joseph L. Block
($41-3/8--$48)
Trusts
Phillip D. Block, Jr
Trusts
Alleghany ($8-3/4--$13-3/4)
Allan P. Kirby (Woolworth)
Holding company A
Holding company B
Scott Paper ($33-$40-1/8)
Thomas B. McCabe
Minnesota Mining & Mfg.
Ralph H. Dwan
Trust
Trust
John D. Ordway
Foundation
Ordway Trust
William L. McKnight
Archibald G. Bush
($540-$71-5/8)
General Guarantee Insurance
Owens-Illinois ($49-5/8--67-1/4)
Robert H. Levis II
R. G. Levis Estate
Trust
J. Preston Levis
Trust
William E. Levis
Partnership
Polaroid
Edwin H. Land
James P. Warburg
($44-1/4--$130)
Holding company
Bydale Company
Fontenoy Corporation
(Both of these holdings are
reduced from originals)
($19-3/8--$31-5/8)
International Business Machines ($404-$549)
Arthur K. Watson 56,111 May, 1965
Trusts 34,315
Thomas J. Watson, Jr. 37,072
Trusts 34,315
Sherman M. Fairchild 164,795
Magellan Company 3,750
Dow Chemical
Herbert H. Dow
Corning Glass Works
Amory Houghton
Trusts
Amory Houghton, Jr
Trusts
As Trustee
Arthur A. Houghton, Jr.
Trusts
International Paper
Ogden Phipps
Trust
Holding company
W. R. Grace
J. Peter Grace
Trusts
Michael Phipps
Holding company No. 1
Holding company No. 2
John H. Phipps
272,832
51,350
918,651
400
22,500
1,130
265,465
990,401
1,513
14,599
909,226
240,678
50,715
8,641
370,897
9,146
10,028
752
372,590
117,069
165,963
1,422
15,658
7,050
170,732
13,500
2,125
298,278
76,356
162,800
110,257
142,646
64,000
35,360
2,714,897
55,326
129,838
111,652
31,103
($24-3/4--$33-7/8)
236,921
Trust
Holding companies
Weyerhaeuser
C. D. Weyerhaeuser
Trust
Corporation
John H. Hauberg
($41-1/2--$49-3/8)
As guardian
Trusts
Corporations
Nonprofit corporation
Herbert M. Kieckbefer
John M. Musser
Trusts
As trustee
F. K. Weyerhaeuser
Trusts for children
Green Valley Co.
With such factors in mind the monthly SEC reports on holdings have been selectively checked with a view to updating the TNEC data, thus reassuring anxious critics that our material is all fresh and new. But, in general, in-and-out trading by mere company officers and directors has been ignored here except when it has seemed to be of significant proportions or by significant officers.
Attention has been concentrated pretty much on the original TNEC list and the 1964 Fortune list of the largest nonfinancial companies, although there is also presented an extensive listing of control groups in other well-known companies.
As to the method used in examining the SEC reports, which embrace thousands of companies and tens of thousands of individuals: The reports have been closely scrutinized in their entirety from 1960, inclusive, through 1965. As every transaction registered requires that the net remaining holding be given, one is assured of what the latest position is, confirming or not the TNEC finding at a distance of about twenty-five years. In this way, too, late-coming names of big holders (if they buy or sell) are brought into view.
Where significant large holdings have not turned up in this 1960 decade, a special tracing backward by individual companies was made prior to 1960 to ascertain the latest date when a net position was given for some family member (thus showing the continued presence of the family).
In certain companies the holdings were traced back to 1945 or to the point that yielded the latest total holding. Such a complete tracing was made of all the major Rockefeller, Mellon, Ford, Du Pont and Rosenwald properties; it was not necessary in the case of others because their presence is fully revealed by the data of the 1960's in almost all cases.
What may seem to be a defect in this method, and perhaps it is a genuine defect, is that by stopping the retroactive survey with 1960 we won't pick up any new investments made by either new or old wealth-holders prior to 1960. But the objective here is not to show the entire investment position of either new or old wealth-holders or to trace all these elements from one company to another in such cases in which they have transferred investment allegiance. All I am trying to do is to show who is rich now and who is a big newcomer to riches by presenting some large samples.
Nor am I trying to develop in detail the names and holdings of every one of 90,000 or more millionaires. Limited space makes it necessary to confine attention to the cream of the crop.
In the case of some of the new companies, I have examined the original prospectus filed with the SEC, as required by law, to ascertain any significant changes in holdings and identities. Particular attention was given to the new public utility operating companies organized out of the old holding companies, because as matters stood in the earlier chapter we tended to lose sight of the owners in the shuffle. The question is: Are they still there? If not, who has taken their place?
We are initially armed with the fact that these companies aren't owned by just anybody out of 190 million-odd in the population. Even the most tenuous kind of ownership puts the owner into about 10 per cent of the populace. And any holding of any kind worth minimally $60,000 net as of 1953 places him within 1. 6 per cent of the population. The holdings with which we are most concerned are limited to a circle consisting of 0. 11 of 1 per cent of the population.
Thus narrowed, our attention is focused directly on the biggest American proprietors-- the magnates, the big shots.
The SEC requires that reports of a person's entire interest be made if there is any change. in any holding in which he has a beneficial interest. This means that his personal holdings, those in which he has an indirect beneficial interest as from a trust or family holding company, those held by a spouse, those for which he acts as trustee or custodian, must all be reported if more than 100 shares are bought or sold in any part of
the holding, direct or indirect. A good picture is therefore given of particular beneficial interests.
While such reporting is for individuals--except when made by a closed-end or family investment company--the holdings of big financial groups are revealed through different transactions on behalf of various members of a family.
It is true that this method will not reveal the holdings of an entire family group in a particular company unless every member of the group engages in transactions, as they sometimes do. But we already know the names of the big family groups so that if we see one member altering his investment position it may be deduced that the others are still solvent but are merely not interested in buying or selling.
We cannot tell in every case who is better off or worse off. A family group may have closed out a very large holding and diversified its ownership in smaller slices in many companies. The new diversified position may have improved its position or not. In dollar values, owing to the general inflation of prices, probably all positions have been improved. At the very top, among Mellons, Du Pouts, Rockefellers, Rosenwalds, Fords and Pews, we know that relative positions have been improved because their companies have outperformed the economy, sometimes by very wide margins. Comparisons can be made here by relating gross sales to gross national product, gross income to national income and net income to net national income.
The reports are set down by the SEC in the following general form:
John Doe
Transaction
? X shares
Net Holding
X shares
X2 do.
X2 do.
X3 do.
X4 do.
X5 do.
X6 do.
X7 do.
X8 do.
Trust
Savings fund
Employer's fund
Wife or family
As trustee
As custodian
Investment company
Partnership
X1 do.
X2 do.
X3 do.
X4 do.
X5 do
X6 do.
X7 do.
X8 do.
The plus-or-minus, indicating a purchase or sale, is credited in the SEC report to whatever individual or instrumentality did the buying or selling.
It would require too much space here to report individual by individual in this way. A somewhat different form of presentation has been adopted to convey the same information.
Our findings will be set forth as much as possible in semi-tabular form. Although share totals will be given, they will not be translated into market values. This task may be left as an exercise for the interested reader, who will be given the 1965 prices for the biggest companies.
As a foretaste of what we are after let us ask, for example, how do matters stand in the late 1960's with J. Paul Getty? Is he still rich? The SEC Official Summary, September, 1965, informs us that he personally owned 4,610,217 shares of the Getty Oil Company and was an indirect participant in trusts with 7,948,272 shares--a total of 12,558,489 shares or about 80 per cent. At a price of 34-7/8 for Getty Oil on November 22, 1965, this holding had a market value of nearly $438 million; in late 1967, $1. 2 billion.
This figure by no means represents everything owned by Getty, who is interested directly and indirectly in many other companies, but it does satisfy us that he is still very rich, probably worth more than a billion. And that is all we are concerned with. For many years, he and his companies have been steadily adding to their holdings. The SEC
report for July, 1965, showed Getty Oil owned 4,077,240 shares of Mission Development, a different company. The report for December, 1963, showed that Getty Oil, after buying 21,169 shares, owned 2,748,883 shares or 63 per cent of Tidewater Oil Company, in which J. Paul Getty through a trust fund owned now only 4,225 shares. He owned none directly, having exchanged his earlier Tidewater stock for Getty Oil stock. The report for June, 1964, showed that Mission Corporation in turn, after buying 8,500 shares, owned 3,431,280 shares of Skelly Oil Company. These are all majority ownerships.
We could go on in this way analyzing the multifarious holdings and interholdings of J. Paul Getty but we would never get to the bottom of it in any event. For Getty, like many others, is a big foreign operator and unquestionably does not have all his holdings registered on the American record.
Getty is clearly officially certified as still in possession of vast wealth. But we must continue, as there may be gnawing doubts about others, such as Rockefellers and Pews, Pitcairns, Do Ponts, McCormicks and Rosenwalds, Clarks and Dukes. 1
In requiring reports of a beneficial interest in trust funds and of holdings as a trustee, the law reveals a large portion of the social security system of the rich. It is an excellent system, and provides much security for its beneficiaries. But in considering it, one wonders about the oft-heard thesis of many conservative and ultra-conservative spokesmen and newspapers that the federal Social Security System, the Family Welfare System and the trade-union system all carry great danger of destroying the characters of the participants. They might, among other things, become mercenary or lazy.
The rich themselves very evidently do not believe that being the beneficiaries of huge trust funds has undermined their characters, or that establishing trust funds for their children will distort the children's characters. No case has come to light where the children of the wealthy have been left penniless for their own benefit. All known cases of disinheritance are punitive, because the children have displeased the parents. Why, if drawing benefits without labor from a big trust fund does not destroy character, will drawing benefits in old age from Social Security or a pension system do so? Why would a true Welfare State be injurious to the general public when a private welfare system of trust funds is not apparently injurious to its limited number of beneficiary heirs?
The Du Ponts Today
As it is never wrong to begin with the Du Ponts in any discussion of American wealth, let us begin with this fabulous clan, leveling our fundamental question: Where are they now, financially speaking? The evidence strongly suggests that they are still massively concentrated in Christiana Securities Company, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, General Motors, Remington Arms and other enterprises of the kind they were partial to in the 1930's. They stand approximately where they were shown to be in the TNEC study. They have neither gone elsewhere, suffered diminution, become bored with property ownership nor disappeared. Taxes have not exterminated them or even visibly shaken them.
Some revelatory SEC reports by members of the Du Pont family in the 1960's are, incompletely, as follows (dates refer to monthly issues of the Official Summary of Security Transactions and Holdings):
Christiana Securities Company
Irene? e du Pont, Jr
Trust
Price range 1965: $232-$315
Shares Date Reported
150,460 March, 1965
22,322
A. Felix du Pont, Jr.
Trust
L. du Pont Copeland
Trust
Crawford H. Greenewalt
Trust
S. Hallock du Pont
William Winder Laird
R. R. M. Carpenter, Jr.
Trusts
Pierre S. du Pont
Lammot du Pont Copeland,
through Delaware Realty
and Investment, merged
with Christiana
20,510
92,132
252,657 August, 1964
100
52,848
4,410
140,000 March, 1964
88,546 August, 1963
11,520 February, 1963
130,995
29,472 October, 1961
52,299*
*Shares of Delaware Realty and Investment
These holdings vary from year to year. Some of the Du Ponts are, from time to time, fairly active traders in a marginal percentage of their holdings. And while they do not reflect the entire holding of the Du Pont family in Christiana Securities, for which the TNEC study showed the family owning 73. 958 per cent of common and 58. 541 of preferred prior to its absorption of Delaware Realty (of which the family owned 83. 985 per cent), what these deals since 1960 do positively show is that the Du Pont family is today still ensconced where it was found to be by the TNEC inquiry. 2
As for E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the world's largest chemical company, the SEC reports show the following incomplete recent holdings:
E. I. du Pont de Nemours Price range 1965: $225-1/4--$261
Shares Date Reported
Christiana Securities
Crawford H. Greenewalt
Co-trustee
L. du Pont Copeland
Andelot, Inc.
Trust
Irene? e du Pont, Jr. ,
Trusts
Pierre S. du Pont
William du Pont, Jr. ,
Trusts
Irene? e du Pont, Jr. , Trust
Henry B. du Pont
Emile F. du Pont
13,416,120 February, 1965
11,710
4,000
69,297 November, 1963
40,668
86,072
7,562 August, 1963
20,000
2,926 March, 1963
8,000 February, 1963
1,261,888
143,864 September, 1962
12,407 September, 1961
8,766 March, 1961
These are by no means the only transaction dates for Du Ponts in stock of Christiana Securities and E. I. du Pont de Nemours in the early 1960's. They merely represent some of the latest positions.
A more thorough disclosure of the identities of some leading Du Pont stockholders was made in the Monthly Summary for June 11, 1949, on the occasion of a stock split in E. I. du Pont de Nemours. Then the holdings of Du Ponts who were officers and directors and holders of more than 10 per cent were as follows:
Common Shares
Donaldson Brown, married to
Greta du Pont Barksdale
Broseco Corp. (Brown Securities Corporation) 20,000
J. Thompson Brown
W. S. Carpenter, Jr
Christiana Securities
Lammot Copeland
Trust
Delaware Realty & Investment
Emile F. du Pont
Wife
Eugene du Pont
Henry B. du Pont
Henry F. du Pont
Irene? e du Pont
Lammot du Pont
P. S. du Pont III
Pierre S. du Pont
C. H. Greenewalt
Lammot Copeland through
Delaware Realty
Emile F. du Pont
Eugene du Pont
Henry B. du Pont through
Delaware Realty
Henry F. du Pont
P. S. du Pont III
Pierre S. du Pont
Trust
49,096
47,256
12,199,200
110,680
92,572
1,217,920
2,248
180
203,212
10,844
173,000
12,000
63,836
6,940
32,896
4,236
$4. 50 series preferred
shares
16,256
15
6,405
16,256
14,184
11
34
1,611
The way titles stood at the end of 1965 was as follows: Members of the Du Pont family own more than 75 per cent of Christiana Securities, which in turn owns at least 29 per cent of the stock of E. I. du Pont de Nemours. Individual Du Ponts separately own additional E. I. du Pont stock or are beneficiaries of trust funds, so that the entire family holding exceeds 44 per cent in gigantic E. I. du Pont de Nemours.
E. I. du Pont de Nemours itself, until recently, owned 23 per cent of the stock of General Motors Corporation, saleswise the world's largest industrial company. After it and other Du Pont holding companies and trust funds were ordered by a federal court to distribute this stock to individual equity owners, each owner of each share of E. I. du Pont de Nemours received 1. 36 shares of General Motors. Upon receiving their share of the GM distribution, Christiana Securities and other Du Pont family funds (selling some to pay capital gains taxes. ) passed the GM shares they received on to individual Du Ponts.
The question now is: How much General Motors stock remains in the hands of individual Du Ponts? Assuming that they sold none since the court order took effect in 1962, on the face of it they still hold at least 17. 25 per cent of General Motors outstanding stock. This minimal figure is arrived at by assuming the payment of a 25 per cent capital gains tax on the entire holding in GM, an overgenerous assumption because the holding was not all interpreted as capital gains.
However, the Du Pont company management announced that, going beyond the court order, members of the family closely associated with the Du Pont company management would voluntarily dispose of their General Motors stock, but such sale would hardly bring holdings below 17. 25 per cent because no tax at all was required on the GM shares distributed to individuals by E. I. du Pont de Nemours.
The SEC reports do not show holdings for Du Ponts in other companies where they are not officers, do not own more than 10 per cent individually, or have not engaged in stock transactions. But that they are interested personally in other companies is shown by the September, 1965, Official Summary where Henry B. du Pont is reported holding 6,000 shares in Remington Arms after selling 500 shares. E. I. du Pont de Nemours owns 60 per cent of Remington common and 99. 6 per cent of the preferred. Transactions were not traced for this study in companies like U. S. Rubber and Phillips Petroleum, where Du Pont interests are represented on the boards of directors.
But in Remington Arms another big old-line family holding was shown in the December, 1961, report for M. Hartley Dodge, son of the founder, who was reported as retaining 510,787 shares after selling 9,072 shares to other members of his family. Mr. Dodge, son-in-law of William Rockefeller, held 50,000 additional Remington Arms shares through a holding company and 28,407 shares in a trust fund. (The SEC reports provide similar information on the other old-line wealthy families: Phipps, Clark, Danforth, Knudsen, Baker, Anderson-Clayton, Dollar, Fisher, Heinz, Swift, Prince, Pew, Harriman, Block, Ryerson, Pitcairn, Hanna, Levis, Warburg, Kresge, Timken, Armour, Grace, Bedford, Firestone, Rosenwald, Colgate, Peet, Milbank, Crocker, Jennings, Olmsted, Cudahy, Havemever, Cabot, Lehman, Woolworth, Gimbel, Jones- Laughlin, Candler, Rosengarten, Hochschild, Wrigley, Rosenstiel, Reynolds, and others. )
With very few exceptions, and a few additions, the roll that was called in the formidable TNEC study is echoed and reechoed today in the SEC monthly reports.
What has been proved in these foregoing pages? Not very much, one would be forced to agree: Merely that the Du Ponts are still alive and thriving and are richer and more powerful today than they were in 1940. And one can predict that they will continue to grow richer and more powerful as long as the continually amended New Deal, Square Deal, New Frontier and Great Society politico-economic synthesis prevails.
The Ford Family
There isn't much doubt about the financial endurance of the Ford family, because the holdings of Henry and Edsel Ford were transferred only after 1947 to the present heirs. Those who believe they may be suffering extinction under the impact of metaphorically brutal taxes or other forces may gain reassurance from recent records.
The Fords did not turn up in the SEC reports until September, 1956, when it was shown that Benson Ford held 1,025,915 shares of Ford Motor Class B stock and Henry Ford II held 1,055,346 of the Class B. The Class B stock, all of which went to the Fords, holds 40 per cent of the voting power. The way this Class B holding came to the SEC record was explained as follows: "Reported that by the terms of a trust created by a relative, Benson Ford and Henry Ford II had in common with two others an option expiring 6/26/56 to acquire 15000 shares of Class B stock. Benson Ford, on 6/20/56, by gift, delivered an assignment of his portion (3750 shares) of the option. On 6/26/56 Henry Ford II, for a consideration, delivered an assignment of his portion (3750 shares) of the option. "
In the February, 1957, Official Summary it was reported that Henry Ford II disposed of 9,000 shares of Class B and in September, 1957, it was shown that he disposed of 100,000 shares and acquired 100,000 shares of the common. The March, 1959, report showed him disposing of 19,415 Class B shares in a private sale and that he had established a holding company that owned 3,284 shares; he retained 815,901 Class B shares at this point. By September, 1959, he had reduced his common holdings to 90,500 shares.
As of September, 1964, Henry Ford II no longer held any common in his own name but did hold 43,846 shares through a trust.
In March, 1964, it was reported that he now owned 1,319,576 Class B shares, held 75,000 B shares in trust, 12,000 B shares through holding companies and was trustee for 316,398 B shares. He now held 99,846 common -shares in a trust.
In January, 1962, it was reported that Benson Ford had reduced his direct holdings of the Class B to 894,147 shares but indirectly held 5,987 in holding companies and 105,456 in trust.
These are the latest positions through 1965 shown for the two men. No positions are shown for William or Charlotte Ford, which presumably were originally identical.
As reported earlier in this account, the Ford family effectively controls the Ford Motor Company and would continue to control it even if a considerable amount of additional common stock were given voting power through sale by the Ford Foundation.
The Mellon Family
The SEC report of March, 1965, showed Richard King Mellon clearing out his last 100 shares of Aluminum Company of America $3. 75 cumulative preferred stock, leaving his holdings in this issue at zero. In July, 1963, however, he was shown as holding 861,200 common shares of Alcoa ($61-1/2-$79-5/8) ) after disposing of 291,552 shares. Alcoa is the world's largest aluminum producer. And in June, 1963, he retained 2,809,922 shares of Gulf Oil ($87-$94-1/4) ) after disposing of 1,943,580. But in July, 1961, he held 4,666,929 shares of Gulf after selling 400,000 shares.
On the basis of the above facts one might reasonably conclude that the Mellons were still flourishing, without taking into account their other manifestations in the form of directorships and the like.
But a more positive showing can be made. In December, 1945, according to SEC reports, some years before six-for-one stock splits, Richard King Mellon owned 1,070,637 shares of Gulf Oil, and his sister, Sarah Mellon Scaife (who died late in 1965) owned 1,041,144 shares. Donaldson Brown of General Motors and Du Pont intermarriage owned 100 shares of Gulf Oil in July, 1947, and held 93,400 through the Broseco Corporation. Alan M. Scaife owned 9,300 shares of Gulf Oil, according to the January 10, 1949, SEC report, and by January, 1950, had raised his holding to 10,300 shares. He owned 30,600 shares in June, 1951.
Down through the years various other transactions in Gulf Oil and Alcoa are shown for this branch of the Mellon family but there is no present point in tracing them; the Mellons are, obviously, still in the ascendant.
The SEC reports show no transactions since 1945 in Gulf Oil or Alcoa for Paul or Ailsa Mellon or transactions for either of these two Mellons in the securities of any companies since 1960. Paul Mellon has been less active than his older cousin in corporate affairs, has more particularly applied himself to foundation and cultural affairs.
The TNEC study found that this clan had a finger in some hundred companies. Even if one had records of recent transactions in them all it would be awkward to set them forth. Exposition is defeated by the very extent of holdings. Recent SEC reports show, for example, that the Consolidation Coal Company, formerly the Pittsburgh Coal Company, of which Richard, Paul, Sarah and Ailsa Mellon owned more than 50 per cent (according to the TNEC study), now holds a 7 per cent interest in the Chrysler Corporation. To trace all such ramifications would be a virtually endless task.
Nor can we undertake to scrutinize all overlappings of large interests. The M. A. Hanna Company is a very large stockholder in Consolidation Coal, the SEC reports, and has heavy investments in many other large companies. H. Barksdale Brown, of the Du Pont clan, owns 3,317 shares of Gulf Oil (SEC, May, 1965); and the Broseco Corporation, instrument of the Brown family, held 666,684 shares on that date. We have already seen that Donaldson Brown, former high General Motors executive, and the Broseco Corporation are heavy stockholders in E. I. du Pont de Nemours. Donaldson Brown and the Broseco Corporation are also substantial stockholders in General Motors (SEC, October, 1950). Down through the years there has been much talk, much of it uninformed, about interlocking directorships. It is more significant that there is a great deal of interlocking ownership among the big interests.
The Pew Family
The TNEC study found the Pew family of Philadelphia in firm ownershipcontrol of the huge Sun Oil Company ($56-5/8-$67-3/4). Recent SEC reports confirm that the family is still in charge with a large dominant interest, 41. 5 per cent. John G. Pew recently held 44,139 shares (September, 1965). Arthur E. Pew, Jr. , held 37,170 shares and a John G. Pew trust 217 shares (December, 1964). Walter C. Pew held 434,214 shares (November, 1964). J. Howard Pew held 794,416 shares (April, 1964). A trust for A. E. Pew, Jr. , held 32,207 shares (November, 1963). J. N. Pew, Jr. , held 647,335 shares (November, 1960). And so on. Whatever the precise Pew ownership position is at any given time, one is obliged to conclude that the Pews are still in full charge of the Sun Oil Company.
The Pitcairn Family
This Pennsylvania family, shown by the TNEC study to dominate the giant Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company ($67-1/4-$85), in the SEC report for August, 1965, was shown to still hold 3,121,296 shares (about 30 per cent) through the Pitcairn Company, the family holding company. Nathan Pitcairn, according to SEC reports (August, 1963) owned 2,912 shares of the Pittston Company ($23-1/8-$32-3/8), big coal, oil and transportation holding company; and the Pitcairn Company held 42,000 shares of Pittston, Whatever else they own the available record showeth not.
The Rockefeller Family
The SEC reports fail to show any dealings in any of the Standard Oil Company stocks by the six leading Rockefellers since 1940. This lacuna is perhaps to be expected, as none of them is a director in the Standard Oil cluster and apparently none individually owns as much as 10 per cent of any Standard Oil stock. As far as the SEC reports show, the Rockefeller position in the Standard Oil group has remained basically unchanged since the time of the TNEC study, although there could have been sales or purchases without their being reflected in the SEC reports. There were indeed sales of Socony in the early 1950's by the late John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
The SEC report for July 10, 1947, showed the Rockefeller Foundation holding 345,902 shares of Standard Oil of Ohio after selling 6,782 shares. Various SEC reports show recent holdings for old-line Standard Oil families such as the Jennings and Bedfords.
But a few dealings in stocks of non-Standard Oil companies of which they are directors are shown in the reports for David and Laurance Rockefeller, suggesting that they still command ample resources. Whether they have sold out any Standard Oil holdings in order to participate in other companies the record does not show, but there is no reason to suppose they have. Apart from their foundation trusteeships the
Rockefeller brothers, with the exception of New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, are currently all directors of Rockefeller Center, Inc. , and Rockefeller Brothers, Inc.
David Rockefeller is chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, second largest in the country, and is known to hold stock in companies in which he holds directorships. The SEC, November, 1962, showed that he held 8,950 shares of B. F. Goodrich stock through trusts. As of 1965 he was a director of Goodrich, Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. , Equitable Life Assurance Society; and chairman of Morningside Heights, Inc. , a real estate development.
Laurance S. Rockefeller is often described as a "venture capitalist" and, in addition to his foundation trusteeships, was in 1965 chairman of Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. , Cancel Bay Plantation, Inc. , Rockefeller Center, Inc. ; director of Filatures et Tissages Africains; chairman of Estate Good Hope and of the Dorado Beach Hotel Corporation. The SEC reports, September, 1961, show that he held 183,274 shares, more than 15 per cent, of the Marquardt Corporation ($8-3/4-$19-1/2 ) after selling 1,300 shares. In Itek Corporation he sold 425 shares as reported by SEC in July, 1965, retaining 152,080 shares ($41). His investment orientation is said to be toward growth enterprises.
Winthrop Rockefeller, a self-described investment manager, has established himself in Arkansas as an extensive operator in land and large-scale agricultural projects. He is a director of the Union National Bank of Little Rock. The most martial of the Rockefellers, he entered the army as a private in 1941 and emerged as a lieutenant colonel; he was with the 77th infantry in the invasion of Guam, Leyte and Okinawa and was decorated with the Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster and the Purple Heart.
If one were to base one's conclusions about the financial status of the Rockefellers from the SEC reports alone, there would be little to tell. A stranger to the scene, with only the SEC reports to go on, would never conclude the Rockefellers amounted to much financially. But we do know from court records that the extensive Standard Oil holdings of John D. I passed to his children, chiefly to John D. II, whose will in turn indicated that he had established trust funds for his six children and many grandchildren. We are thrown back in this case to the TNEC study for basic data.
The family could have divested itself of Standard Oil holdings but, if it had, the fact would have become known through SEC reports or other channels The Rockefellers do not actively associate themselves with the management of the Standard Oil enterprises, apparently allowing them to be run according to standard big-business practices; but the general opinion of investment specialists is that directly and indirectly they hold a decisive veto power over any policy or action of these companies. No conceivable financial syndicate in the world would undertake to challenge the unobtrusive Rockefeller dominance of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey), the largest oil company and the largest industrial enterprise by assets of any kind in the world.
My conclusion is that the relative financial position of the Rockefeller family is now the same as or better than it was at the time of the TNEC study. It may be surpassed a bit by the far more numerous Du Ponts; but no single Du Pont appears to be as wealthy as any one of the six oldest Rockefellers. The financial strength of the Du Ponts is spread unevenly among some 250 persons. So, while the collective net worth of the Du Ponts may or may not be somewhat greater than that of the Rockefellers, only the Mellons can compare with the latter individually.
The general strength of the Rockefellers and Mellons, net worth to one side, also appears notably great because it is more widely diversified in high priority enterprises-- especially banking. The Du Ponts seem more deeply entrenched in frontier technology, although neither the Standard Oil companies nor Gulf Oil should be overlooked as huge
science-oriented enterprises. They are more than producers and distributors of petroleum.
But the very vagueness of our recent specific data on the Rockefellers, their failure to trade in and out of their stocks, should in itself be taken as a sign that they preside over enterprises too vast to permit distraction into minor operations.
The Rosenwald Family
About 25 per cent of the stock of Sears, Roebuck and Company, largest merchandising enterprise in the world, is owned by the employees' pension fund. The TNEC report showed the Rosenwald family holding 12. 5 per cent Of the stock, worth now about $500 million. While the Rosenwalds do not engage. in many stock transactions in this company, there have been a few, enough to signal that they are still present. Whether their percentage holding is now greater or less than it was there is no way of determining through the SEC reports. In view of the vast expansion of the company since the war, one would surmise that they had simultaneously added, net, to their holdings The most recent Rosenwald holding was shown in the SEC report for October, 1964, when Edgar B. (Rosenwald) Stern, Jr. , was shown as owning 25,017 shares directly, 1,762 shares as community property and 312,844 shares through a trust fund. He is a director of the company and an occasional trader in the stock. The July 11, 1949, SEC report showed that Julius Rosenwald II held 7,248 shares after selling 750 shares. As neither of these are the major living Rosenwalds, who are Lessing and William, we may safely conclude that the family still maintains a large financial presence in the company, with the management of which they have always been actively associated.
Miscellaneous Large Holdings
Similar large holdings by family and investment groups in major companies can be set forth. In order to economize on space there will now be summarily reported, on the basis of the SEC reports, some concentrated large stockholdings in the largest companies of 1964, mostly of old-line families. The dates are of the SEC monthly reports. Prices are the 1965 range.
Some such holdings are, incompletely, as follows:
Armour ($35-1/4--$53-1/8)
Frederick Henry Prince Trust of 1932
Modestus R. Bauer
William Wood Prince
Shares Date
356,000 Sept. , 1965
136,400 March, 1965
63,625 Jan. , 1965
175,090 Jan. , 1965
180,264
4,7 20
64,075
252,256
323
42,472
108,486
84,87 8
240,5 77
113,432 Sept. , 1965
193,872
Reynolds Metals
David P. Reynolds
($33-5/8--$48)
Trusts
Minor daughters
Davreyn Corp.
R. S. Reynolds, Jr.
Trusts
As custodian
Rireyn Corp.
William G. Reynolds
Trusts
Wilreyn Corp.
Singer
Stephen C. Clark, Jr,
Trusts
($56--$83-1/)4
F. Ambrose Clark
Trusts
259,264 Jan. , 1964
650,110
51,325 Sept. , 1965
35,759
21,896
61,500 Aug. , 1965
123,900
51,563 May, 1965
123,900
143,694 Feb. , 1960
19,500
3,451,913 Dec. , 1963
632,900
9,400
865,752 Nov. , 1963
1,000 Aug. , 1965
876,000
371,800
4,500 Aug. , 1964
1,500
4,682,504
2,711,801 May, 1963
1,797,895 May, 1961
25,000
12,980 July, 1965
4,200
60,000
25,450 Aug. , 1964
2,000
53,592 July, 1960
8,000
1,313,520 July, 1965
36,885
169,7176
1,216
American Sugar
Frederick E. Ossorio
Ossorio family
As custodian
Inland Steel
L. B. Block
Trusts
Joseph L. Block
($41-3/8--$48)
Trusts
Phillip D. Block, Jr
Trusts
Alleghany ($8-3/4--$13-3/4)
Allan P. Kirby (Woolworth)
Holding company A
Holding company B
Scott Paper ($33-$40-1/8)
Thomas B. McCabe
Minnesota Mining & Mfg.
Ralph H. Dwan
Trust
Trust
John D. Ordway
Foundation
Ordway Trust
William L. McKnight
Archibald G. Bush
($540-$71-5/8)
General Guarantee Insurance
Owens-Illinois ($49-5/8--67-1/4)
Robert H. Levis II
R. G. Levis Estate
Trust
J. Preston Levis
Trust
William E. Levis
Partnership
Polaroid
Edwin H. Land
James P. Warburg
($44-1/4--$130)
Holding company
Bydale Company
Fontenoy Corporation
(Both of these holdings are
reduced from originals)
($19-3/8--$31-5/8)
International Business Machines ($404-$549)
Arthur K. Watson 56,111 May, 1965
Trusts 34,315
Thomas J. Watson, Jr. 37,072
Trusts 34,315
Sherman M. Fairchild 164,795
Magellan Company 3,750
Dow Chemical
Herbert H. Dow
Corning Glass Works
Amory Houghton
Trusts
Amory Houghton, Jr
Trusts
As Trustee
Arthur A. Houghton, Jr.
Trusts
International Paper
Ogden Phipps
Trust
Holding company
W. R. Grace
J. Peter Grace
Trusts
Michael Phipps
Holding company No. 1
Holding company No. 2
John H. Phipps
272,832
51,350
918,651
400
22,500
1,130
265,465
990,401
1,513
14,599
909,226
240,678
50,715
8,641
370,897
9,146
10,028
752
372,590
117,069
165,963
1,422
15,658
7,050
170,732
13,500
2,125
298,278
76,356
162,800
110,257
142,646
64,000
35,360
2,714,897
55,326
129,838
111,652
31,103
($24-3/4--$33-7/8)
236,921
Trust
Holding companies
Weyerhaeuser
C. D. Weyerhaeuser
Trust
Corporation
John H. Hauberg
($41-1/2--$49-3/8)
As guardian
Trusts
Corporations
Nonprofit corporation
Herbert M. Kieckbefer
John M. Musser
Trusts
As trustee
F. K. Weyerhaeuser
Trusts for children
Green Valley Co.
