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404 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS year, resigned, and John D. Rockefeller succeeded him at a salary of $500. At the end of the third year he asked $800 and was offered $700. He had saved nearly $800 and, his employer still being inclined to quibble over the amount, he forthwith resigned and accepted the offer of a young Englishman, M. B. Clark, to enter partnership with him in a general commission business. To do this it became necessary for him to borrow $1,000. He obtained the money from his father at ten per cent, interest. Shortly afterward he had established a bank credit and was borrowing considerable sums. In his memoirs Mr. Rocke- feller naively declares that he was always a great borrower. It is significant that in the first year the sales of this youthful partnership exceeded half a million dollars. For nearly ten years this business prospered. Meantime Mr. Rockefeller, with James and Richard Clark and Samuel Andrews, had organized an oil refining company. In the troublous period of 1865 this partnership was dissolved and Mr. Rockefeller bought the plant and good will of the firm when, by agreement, it was auctioned off in private with the four erstwhile partners as the only bidders. Subsequently Andrews joined him in the venture. Two years later this business was merged with the firms of William Rockefeller & Co., Rockefeller & Co., S. V. Harkness and H. M. Flagler under the firm name of Rockefeller, Andrews & Flagler, Oil Refiners. Meantime many oil refineries had been built. At the outset profits had been large and the natural result was a rush for investment in the business. Soon there was an overproduc- tion of refined oil, prices tumbled and scores of concerns faced financial ruin. It was upon Mr. Rockefeller's initiative that the company began buying in the most desirable of these em- barrassed refineries and planning an extension of the market abroad. The Standard Oil Company proper was organized in 1870, with a capital of $1,000,000. In 1872 the capital was increased to $2,500,000 and in 1874 was again increased to $3,500,000. ^