May 2, 2008
 
PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Jay Rockefeller's Senate Speech: Biting the Hand That Fed Him?
 
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Editor
 
I was struck by the irony of Sen. Jay Rockefeller's speech Thursday, May 1, 2008 in the Senate, calling for the body to do something about the nation's skyrocketing gasoline prices. I watched it on CSPAN and read the news release that was the basis of the accompanying news story.
 
Americans don't know much about their own history, but they know that Jay's great-great grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Sr. (1839-1937) with his younger brother William in 1870 created Standard Oil, the prototype of all the vertically integrated petroleum producers. Don't they?
 
If they -- and you, dear reader don't know this -- look up:
 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/peopleevents/p_rock_jsr.html
 
John D. Rockefeller Sr., who died the same year Jay was born, was the son of a promoter and confidence man, William Avery "Doc" Rockefeller, who "married up" when he married Eliza Davison in 1837 (the D. in Jay's name is "Davison")
 
I'm convinced that Doc Rockefeller (1810-1906) was the inspiration for the patent medicine peddler who became the Wizard of Oz in L. Frank Baum's immortal novel.
 
The irony was obvious to me when Jay called for more exploration and heaped scorn on the "excess" profits of oil companies. "Senior" and his brother William wanted controls on production of oil when they formed Standard Oil in 1870. The country was awash with oil and prices were low.
 
Standard Oil bought up wells and forced competitors out of business if they didn't sell to the company. They ended up creating the industrial trust or monopoly that was the model for all others, including U.S. Steel. Crude oil was refined to produce kerosene for lighting and heating in that pre-automobile era. It also was used for lubricants and to power steam traction engines, the early gigantic form of smaller farm tractors.
 
Check out the site and other sources and maybe you'll be struck with the historic nature of Jay's Senate speech as much as I was.