The Men Who Built America (2012) s01e04 Episode Script

1 - NARRATOR: Previously on the men who built America Fighting back from the bloodshed of the Civil War, America has grown into one of the most powerful countries on the planet fuelled by a group of visionaries who are building a better future.
Vanderbilt stopped at nothing to connect the nation via railroads.
- If they want a War-- I'll give them a war.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller used his trademark ruthlessness to light homes from coast to coast - But what about the Pittsburgh refineries? - Shut them down.
- NARRATOR: Cities are expanding to the sky built on the strength of Andrew Carnegie's steel.
- It's impossible.
- Nothing's impossible.
- NARRATOR: And under J.
P.
Morgan's control, electricity is starting to power the country.
- EDISON: Long live the electric light.
- (laughter) - (applause) - MORGAN: We're in the early days of a new industry.
- NARRATOR: In just 35 short years the nation has changed faster than anyone could imagine.
But the incredible advancements come with a price.
- All those in favor of striking, raise your hand! - NARRATOR: An undercurrent of anger is growing - Fire! - (gun fires) - NARRATOR: And many - Mr.
Frick - NARRATOR: are looking to take back control of the country but America's most powerful Titans believe they answer to no one.
- I've heard enough.
This is what's going to happen.
The Morgan bank - NARRATOR: And with a Presidential election on the horizon their next move will shock the world.
- (Blues Saraceno playing "Save My Soul") When I got to Memphis I put my old baby down He said I can't take you to Heaven I can't save your soul I can't promise forever Whoo With my heart in your hands I can't feel, fell my soul - NARRATOR: After inheriting and expanding his father's banking empire J.
P.
Morgan is now among the most powerful man in the nation.
His influence over the country is matched by only two other men.
Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller have been rivals for decades and that competition has driven both men to incredible heights.
At the peak of their power, J.
P.
Morgan, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie are worth the modern equivalent of over $1 trillion dollars combined.
More than the entire net worth of the 40 richest people alive today.
- The wealth, then, was like royalty.
It was just a different thing.
They literally controlled the country.
When you're talking about a guy like Rockefeller, who was literally 1% of the economy, it's stunning to think about that.
It is almost incomprehensible.
- NARRATOR: But while Carnegie, Rockefeller and Morgan continue to get richer, others are struggling to get by.
The gap between the rich and the poor is as big as it's ever been.
Over 90% ofAmericans survive on less than $100 dollars per month, while the average worker earns barely a dollar a day-- well below the poverty line.
Working conditions in factories across the country are almost unbearable.
In a single year, one out of every 11 steel workers will die while on the job.
As the country approaches the 1896 Presidential election, America's poor are desperate and without hope.
One man sees the opportunity to harness their anger and in the process propel himself to the White House-- William Jennings Bryan.
Bryan runs on a ticket promising equality for all, vowing to be a voice for the poor and to take the fight to the country's elite.
- The great combinations of capital have encroached upon the rights of the masses.
No man can earn a million dollars honestly.
- (applause) - He made himself the spokesman for the common man.
He was the Great Commoner.
There's no doubt that he tapped into something that was vital to most Americans that were not well off.
- Republicans endeavor to overthrow and discredit all who honestly administer the law and to allow every wrong doer to operate unchecked as long as he has enough money.
- The monopolies, the trusts became a target of Democrats, so that anti-trust became a rallying cry of everybody who was--well not seen as in the hip pocket of the corporations themselves.
- I will tear down these trusts.
Do you hear me, Carnegie? Do you hear me, Rockefeller? - (applause) - NARRATOR: Bryan's emergence is the biggest threat the Titans have ever faced.
He promises to dismantle their companies and to not rest until they're behind bars.
- CARNEGIE: This is William Jennings Bryan at a recent Democrat rally.
He's a prohibitionist and a devout Presbyterian.
According to him, Darwin's theory of evolution is a pack of lies.
He's an enemy of the gold standard and an enemy of big business.
It is certain that he will win the Democratic nomination.
What do you think? - The Republican party has a good candidate.
- No.
We have to have to buy our own president.
- They took advantage of the strengths.
When you have, you know, what relatively speaking is an unlimited amount of money, you can pay people to do almost anything for you.
- NARRATOR: Desperate to protect the empires they've spent their lifetimes building the titans throw their full support behind the candidacy of Ohio Governor, William McKinley.
- William McKinley's campaign manager was an industrialist himself and he went, essentially hat in head, around Wall Street "dunning them".
Saying, "if McKinley doesn't win, that crazy man Bryant will be President and if Bryan is President, don't you realize what that is going to do to the credibility of the United States around the world?" - NARRATOR: The Titans weld more power than any group of men in American history and they're about to use it.
- Much appreciated.
This is McKinley's speech that he'll be giving at the Republican convention.
- Make sure he sees it in time.
- Understood.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller, Morgan and Carnegie each give over $200,000 to McKinley.
The equivalent of $20 million dollars today.
The campaign is, by far, the most expensive in American history and McKinley outspent Bryan by a factor of five to one.
But they don't just fund their candidate.
The group wields tremendous influence and they aren't shy about using it.
Suggesting headlines and orchestrating PR campaigns that end up getting McKinley elected.
- It was easier to buy the publicity that you wanted in those days, than it is now.
The news media was a smaller market and it was easier to feed information to your favorite correspondents than it probably is now.
- NARRATOR: Bryan fights back.
He undertakes the country's first whistle-stop press tour.
Cross-crossing the nation and talking directly to the people.
The tour becomes the model for the way Presidential Bryan gives over 500 speeches to huge crowds across the country.
- I will put rings in the noses of these hogs.
- NARRATOR: Publicly attacking the nation's richest and most powerful men and vowing to usher in a whole new era.
As Bryan's campaign gains traction, the nation's leading industrialists turn to fear tactics.
- Many big employers-- many big industrialists said, "if Bryan wins this election, business is going to be so bad we're simply closing shop.
So, if Bryan wins on election Tuesday, don't bother showing up for work on the next day because there won't be jobs.
" Well, if you're a worker and this is something that confronts you, you're going to think very seriously--even if you had been intending to vote for Bryan, which way does maybe your heart leans towards Bryant, but where does your pocketbook point? - NARRATOR: On election day the lines are drawn.
It's Wall Street versus Main Street, rich versus poor.
- One of the things of an evolving society is that-- is the wealth distribution and it's clear that we argue about today has a corner in every politics.
Is it better with wealth in the hands of a few, versus distributing among the many, whether from a moral or an economic point of view.
- NARRATOR: 90% of eligible voters go to the polls, roughly double recent turnouts.
- In the 1890s voting was a public act and on one side there was the Republican ballot box and on the other side was the Democratic ballot box.
And so your foreman or an agent of your foreman could see who you voted for.
So there was a certain coercion that was employed by the Republicans upon those urban workers.
They might well have decided what they decided on their own but this simply made it easier for them to decide that.
- NARRATOR: When the polls close, the nation's future hangs in the balance.
For 20 long hours Carnegie, Morgan and Rockefeller agonize over the results.
Not knowing whether the modern country they helped to build will still be the same when all the ballots are counted.
America is at a crossroads.
A small group of men have created the modern country, building unimagined empires in oil, steel and electricity.
But now, those empires are being threatened.
People across the country are demanding change.
Outraged over what they see as corrupt business practices and unbearable conditions for workers.
The 1896 US Presidential election is the battleground to determine the future of the nation and the Titans have done everything they can to make sure the election goes their way.
As America goes to the polls, Andrew Carnegie, J.
P.
Morgan and John Rockefeller are forced to wait.
Ultimately, this decision lies in the hands of the American people.
The country is divided.
Democrat William Jennings Bryant carries the rural South and Mid-West.
While Ohio Governor, William McKinley, takes the big money North East.
As the results are tallied the nation holds its breath.
Until, finally, a President is chosen.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan have dodged a bullet.
The country remains in their control.
With McKinley in office they're free to conduct business in the way they've become accustomed.
- MAURY KLEIN: After McKinley's election a number of the issues that had bothered the big businessmen conveniently went away.
He was a man who was in his philosophy, in his approach to politics very much in sympathy with them.
- NARRATOR: McKinley rules back regulation and profits once again skyrocket.
It's back to business as usual and Carnegie, Rockefeller and Morgan are set to become even more powerful than ever before.
They've defeated their common enemy and with that ultimate goal achieved their uneasy alliance begins to fray.
Rockefeller is the first to break ranks.
- Because Rockefeller, because Carnegie were so wealthy, because they had so much money--they had more money than they could probably reinvest in their own companies-- they were looking for things to invest in.
- NARRATOR: John Rockefeller learns of a massive deposit of iron ore in Northern Minnesota.
The primary material used in production of steel.
Rockefeller knows little about the steel business.
What he does know is that Andrew Carnegie is the biggest steel producer in the world and that this is his chance to beat his long time rival at his own game.
- If you were a well-run company competing against other well-run companies you're coming up with ideas to jump them.
You're thinking they might do this, I'm going to do this.
It's not a big complicated thing.
- Rockefeller is a fool.
- How so? - Should we be worried? - No.
You can buy iron ore anywhere and the ore from the Mesabi Mountains is like dust.
It clogs the blast furnaces.
No steel producer in his right mind would buy it.
- (dynamite explosion) - NARRATOR: But Carnegie is wrong.
Steel manufacturers quickly figure out how to use the iron ore and Rockefeller immediately begins supplying it to Carnegie's competitors at rock bottom prices.
- There are many people who either work for Carnegie knew how to make steel, could figure out, well if I could raise a little bit of money maybe I could start my own steel company and price it just a little bit lower than Carnegie.
And guess what? Customers will come to me to buy their steel.
- NARRATOR: As the competition heats up Carnegie's customers begin to flee.
The impact is devastating.
In just months Carnegie's profits begin to crater.
Sensing weakness Rockefeller devises a daring scheme.
He's going to build a steel plant.
One to rival anything Andrew Carnegie has ever built.
But Carnegie knows he can't let that happen.
- Carnegie is determined that nobody is going to take his place.
He's going to build new plants, he's going to destroy-- if Rockefeller goes into steel he'll destroy him.
Carnegie calls a meeting.
Hoping to intimidate Rockefeller into staying out of the steel business.
But Rockefeller didn't become the richest man in American history by cowering in fear.
- CARNEGIE: Mr.
Rockefeller.
- ROCKEFELLER: Mr.
Carnegie.
- You don't want to negotiate with me.
I am a great negotiator.
I know I intimidate people.
I understand that.
I get it, and I understand why, and I don't want to intimidate anybody, unless they try to hurt me.
Then I hurt them back.
- NARRATOR: Their rivalry has lasted for decades but now--for the first time ever--Carnegie and Rockefeller are locking horns directly.
The negotiations last for months and neither man is willing to give in.
- Negotiating is a real art.
It's an art and a great negotiator, is like a great surgeon, and the--they're very, very rare.
You don't see it often.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller has already made a fortune in oil.
His investment in steel is just a small part of his portfolio.
- CARLY FIORINA: You have to be willing to walk away.
You have to be willing to walk away.
And people who won't walk away from a deal, in my experience, end up making bad deals.
- NARRATOR: Carnegie knows he has little choice.
In order to stay on top, he needs to do whatever it takes to keep Rockefeller out of steel.
- CARNEGIE: I will buy the entire output of your mines.
In return, you will renounce your decision to construct a steel mill.
- ROCKEFELLER: Agreed.
- They both knew that at some point they would have to reach a deal in which neither got everything he wanted.
But neither got destroyed in the process.
Rockefeller and Carnegie, in the end, were smart enough to know that they were both too big to get into a battle.
- NARRATOR: The agreement is one of the most satisfying of Rockefeller's career.
He's forced his biggest rival to hand over a fortune in exchange for an iron ore mine he never had much interest in owning.
Rockefeller may have gotten the better of Carnegie but their deal has drawn the attention of another rival who envisions something even bigger.
America has expanded more in the last three decades than any country on Earth.
Covering the breadth of the continent, its prosperity is built on oil, steel and electricity.
John D.
Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and J.
P.
Morgan amassed mind-boggling fortunes and became targets.
But after teaming up to put their man in the White House, they're now free to do whatever they want.
- Every great business leader I've ever met, in addition to being very smart, very driven, they have this "Why not me? Screw it.
I deserve it.
Let's go.
" And if you don't have that you can't achieve greatness.
- NARRATOR: J.
P.
Morgan has risen to power by consolidating broken industries and eliminating competition, and after Carnegie's deal with Rockefeller, he sees the potential to apply his model to the steel business.
- Morgan had much more power than he had wealth and he understood that he could have more influence over the economy than Rockefeller, than Carnegie, than just about anybody else.
And he used this to pursue his vision of the American economy.
- NARRATOR: Morgan's years of deal making have left him with a controlling interest in companies ranging from manufacturing, to mining, to railroads.
One industry brings all those others together--steel.
- J.
P.
Morgan believes that some individual has to bring sense and has to bring order to American capitalism.
Morgan wants to end the cutthroat competition in steel and the only way to do that is to bring together the competitors into one new company.
- NARRATOR: If Morgan can consolidate steel, he could potentially create the largest corporate empire in the world.
But do to that, J.
P.
Morgan will need to pull off his biggest and most daring move yet-- a complete takeover ofAndrew Carnegie's empire.
Morgan's timing is impeccable.
Carnegie, after years of bruising battles, is questioning his future.
- Carnegie knew that as long as he wanted to, he could continue to reign supreme in steel.
He didn't know that he wanted to keep fighting for the rest of his life.
- NARRATOR: Morgan knows he can't go after Carnegie directly.
He needs another way in.
So he sets up a meeting with Carnegie's right-hand man, Charles Schwab.
- How long have your worked for Carnegie? - Over 1 5 years.
- I guess he'd hate it if you left.
- No one is indispensable.
- You've doubled profits at Carnegie Steel every year for the past 5 years.
- Times have been good.
Carnegie is a very easy boss.
- What if you were your own boss? - Of what? - I am going to buy Carnegie Steel.
And you are going to be President of the world's largest company.
- With all due respect, Mr.
Morgan, Carnegie would kill your idea at birth.
Carnegie would never sell.
- Everyone has their price.
You just have to find out what it is.
CARNEGIE: Did you know, Charles, that the game of golf was invented in Scotland? - I did not.
So, do they treat you like a king when you return home to Scotland? - I suppose they do.
- And then you came to America and became a king-- of industry.
You created your own destiny.
- Destiny is not a matter of chance.
It's a matter of choice.
- Exactly.
Quote from Shakespeare? - No.
William Jennings Bryan said it.
And we three kings of industry have robbed him of his destiny.
- Yeah.
For the greater good.
To create more wealth.
- Only if that wealth is used for the benefit of mankind.
- You know, if you were to sell Carnegie Steel, you could spend the rest of your life benefiting mankind.
- Alas, there is not one person in the world with enough money to buy Carnegie Steel.
- Save J.
P.
Morgan.
Supposing Morgan did want to buy.
What would be your price? - Carnegie wasn't gonna do any price haggling with Morgan.
Carnegie writes done four hundred and eighty million on a piece of paper.
It's the equivalent of four hundred billion today.
More than Gates and Buffet together.
NARRATOR: Carnegie has dared J.
P.
Morgan to buy him out for an outrageous price.
A sum that is higher than the entire budget of the U.
S.
Federal Government.
- I have a price.
- NARRATOR: America is on the move.
After decades of unprecedented growth, the country has emerged as one of the leading industrial powers in the world.
J.
P.
Morgan has consolidated business for years and now he's set his sights on Andrew Carnegie's steel empire.
Hoping to take it over and create a monopoly in steel.
But Carnegie has spent a lifetime building his company, rising from nothing to become one of the most powerful men in America.
Convincing him to sell will take an astronomical amount of money.
- I have a price.
- Have Carnegie come and meet me.
Tell him the answer's yes.
- CARNEGIE: I believe that's the earliest in the day that I've ever drunk champagne.
- Congratulations, Carnegie.
You're now the richest man in the world.
- Would you have said yes, Morgan, if I had asked for $100 million more? - Goodbye, Carnegie.
- NARRATOR: For 30 years Andrew Carnegie has battled John D.
Rockefeller for the title ofAmerica's richest man and now he's finally surpassed him.
The deal gives Carnegie a personal net worth of $310 billion dollars in today's money.
The largest private fortune the modern world has ever seen.
- Initially there is this enormous let down.
He can't quite believe now that he has no connection with Pittsburgh or his mills.
That there is no Carnegie Steel anymore and I think it's hard for him to get used to that.
- If somebody accepts the ask too quickly, then you think there was more room there.
But I never like to look back.
I'm a very forward thinking person and a very positive thinking person, and the transactions that I did, or did not do, I very rarely have any remorse over a situation.
I like to move on.
- NARRATOR: J.
P.
Morgan calls his new company, U.
S.
Steel.
It's instantly the biggest corporation in the world.
The first company in history to be worth more than 1 billion dollars and it will dominate the steel business for almost 100 years, virtually unchallenged.
But the creation of U.
S.
Steel is only possible in this new era of unchecked monopolies.
An era Morgan helped create when he and his rivals put their President in the White House.
They may have helped to buy the President, but they can't avoid politics forever.
Their power over the nation's biggest industries soon catches the attention of an emerging politician, Theodore Roosevelt.
- Roosevelt was the kind of figure that had to dominate, had to, in a sense, own the room.
- NARRATOR: Roosevelt is from a wealthy New York family and could have become a businessman like Carnegie or Rockefeller, but he took a different path.
Foregoing a career in business for one in politics.
But the young Roosevelt had an image problem.
His fancy clothes and upper class demeanor left him open to ridicule.
He took great pains to remake his image posing in a New York City photography studio dressed as a Badlands hunter with a $500 engraved silver hunting knife from Tiffany's.
The images help Roosevelt transform himself from a wealthy New York aristocrat into a man of the people.
And, as Roosevelt enlists in the army, the image he manufactured becomes real.
- HW BRANDS: Theodore Roosevelt became a hero during the Spanish-American war.
And the republican boss of New York state said to Theodore Roosevelt, "you're my boy.
" Got him the Republican nomination and by virtue of his heroism became New York Governor.
Roosevelt quickly demonstrated an independent streak.
Roosevelt could not be manipulated at all.
- NARRATOR: As Governor of New York, Roosevelt passes laws clamping down on big business.
His biggest targets are the nation's most powerful monopolies and the men behind them.
But Rockefeller and Morgan know they can't buy Roosevelt so they set out to make him as weak as possible.
- One way to figure out how to keep Roosevelt from becoming a major figure at the national level is to make him Vice President.
Because the Vice President doesn't really have much to do.
- NARRATOR: Heading into a new election year it's a rematch of 1896.
McKinley versus William Jennings Bryan.
Through a series of backroom deals, some of the nation's richest and most powerful men convince McKinley to put Roosevelt on the ticket.
- The vice presidency, in those days, was a place where people went to disappear.
They became vice president, were never heard from again.
It was almost like a modern witness protection program.
- NARRATOR: McKinley is re-elected by a comfortable margin and Roosevelt is sworn in as Vice President.
With their man still in the White House and their nemesis in a powerless position, Rockefeller and Morgan think they have protected their empires.
But their clever ploy may backfire.
President William McKinley is re-elected to a second term and Aspiring trust buster Theodore Roosevelt is installed as Vice President.
A clever play to silence his influence.
With McKinley in office for another four years, John Rockefeller and J.
P.
Morgan have the freedom to expand their empires to unprecedented heights.
In September of 1901 President McKinley travels to Buffalo to give a speech heralding America's prosperity.
But that prosperity hasn't reached everyone.
Many are still struggling to survive and they're fed up with McKinley's close relationship with big business.
Leon Czolgosz is a former factory worker who recently lost his job at a company J.
P.
Morgan took over during the creation of U.
S.
Steel.
As Czolgosz struggled, he took refuge in the growing anarchist movement.
He became convinced that the Government is helping the rich exploit the poor and he's determined to put an end to it.
- (gun fires) - NARRATOR: Eight days after the shooting, William McKinley succumbs to his injuries becoming the third American President to be killed in office.
For America's most powerful men, it's the worst case scenario.
An assassin's bullet has robbed them of their president, a man they spent millions to get elected and with his death their worst enemy comes to power.
Teddy Roosevelt is about to become the leader of the free world.
- Mr.
Roosevelt.
Very good to meet you, Sir.
- The plan of having Roosevelt buried, in effect, in the vice presidency completely backfired because who could've predicted what would happen? And what would happen so quickly after the election of the 1900.
- Theodore Roosevelt, raise your right hand.
Do you, Theodore Roosevelt solemnly swear that you will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
And to the best of your ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.
- ROOSEVELT: And thus, I swear! Now.
Let's get started.
- Started.
Yes.
- Roosevelt insisted that the big capitalists recognize that they were mere capitalists.
And that the elected officials of the country, were the ones that the people had chosen.
Nobody elected J.
P.
Morgan to anything.
Nobody elected John D.
Rockefeller to anything.
But the people had, well, indirectly elected Theodore Roosevelt President and he was going to make the most of it.
- Roosevelt quickly launches a campaign against the nation's largest trusts and his first target is a railroad conglomerate owned by J.
P.
Morgan.
- Morgan demanded to see the President.
So he stormed down from New York to Washington, went into the White House.
And he said, I don't understand, he said, if we got a problem, send your man to my man and they'll fix it up.
And Roosevelt said, "This is exactly the problem with Morgan.
He acts as though I'm just a rival boss or something.
" And Morgan, who thought that he could manipulate Roosevelt, discovered that Roosevelt could not be manipulated at all.
- NARRATOR: Roosevelt refuses to back down from Morgan.
He sues his company in Federal court.
The first Government anti-trust case filed against a major corporation.
Roosevelt goes on to win and Morgan's railroad monopoly is broken up.
It's a stunning setback for J.
P.
Morgan.
One he'll agonize over for years and it's a sign of things to come for his fellow Titans.
Roosevelt is elected to a second term and over the course of his administration, he files suit against dozens of trusts.
It's a time of great change for the nation.
J.
P.
Morgan, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie suddenly find Themselves as members of an old guard.
Aging Titans forced to defend their fading empires.
But as other monopolies fall, one target refuses to go down.
John D.
Rockefeller's Standard Oil had managed to hold off a break up over multiple administrations.
But Rockefeller won't be able to hide forever.
- Standard Oil got the reputation as the most hated company in America.
It became literally the symbol for big business evils.
It was an example of big businesses getting way too much power and nothing, or no one, available to restrain them.
- NARRATOR: The Government files Suit against Standard Oil--in what promises to be the biggest anti-trust case of all time-- and the Government is hoping their lead witness will be John D.
Rockefeller himself.
The feds issue a subpoena and Rockefeller goes on the run.
From California, to Maine, to Key West The most powerful man in America has become a fugitive from justice.
- He went all over the country to escape being served subpoenas.
You know, he was constantly running from the law.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller avoids the subpoenas for months.
But life intervenes.
His son, John Jnr.
, and his wife welcome the first Rockefeller grandson into the world.
Still on the run from the subpoena, Rockefeller is unable to travel to see his grandchild and the absence is unbearable.
- DEVIL BILL: I'm only here for one day.
Once I'm gone I am gone and I may not be back.
- NARRATOR: Rockefeller knows what it's like to be abandoned - DEVIL BILL: Never trust anybody son.
Not even me.
- NARRATOR: And he's not going to let this case tear his family apart.
He turns himself in agreeing to testify in court in defense of Standard Oil and in defense of an entire way of business he helped create.
- NARRATOR: America has emerged onto the world stage rebuilt over the past five decades by John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.
P.
Morgan.
They've reigned uncontested for years.
Only now the government is cracking down on big business in a big way.
- (Blues Saraceno playing "Save My Soul") When I got to Memphis I put my old baby down He said I can't take you to Heaven I can't save your soul I can't promise forever Whoo With my heart in your hands I can't feel, fell my soul - NARRATOR: The case will be the biggest challenge of Rockefeller's life.
A fight that will determine the future of the country.
As Rockefeller is forced to defend the company he built from nothing into one of the most powerful corporation's on earth.
- Buy now.
Buy everything.
Buy the whole company.
- (people murmuring) - It's Rockefeller.
- The United States versus Standard Oil.
This hearing is now in session.
Please state your name.
- John Rockefeller.
- Mr.
Rockefeller, can you tell the court how in just one year, in 1872, you acquired all the refineries in Cleveland? - I don't remember.
- (gasps) - (people murmuring) - It was 36 years ago.
- You used intimidation to wipe out the competition, did you not? I mean, so ruthlessly that it became known as the Cleveland massacre.
- I don't remember any massacre.
- (people murmuring) - Are you aware of payments made by Standard Oil to a Senator, $15,000 to block a bill hostile to Standard Oil? - I don't remember.
- We have a list of bribes made by Standard Oil to politicians between 1903 - I stepped down as Chief Executive of Standard Oil in 1902.
I can't answer for any incidents that occurred after that date.
- You are still President of Standard Oil, are you not? - It's an honorary title.
Much like that of President of the United States.
- (laughter) - Can I remind you Mr.
Rockefeller of the seriousness of the charges brought against you.
- NARRATOR: As John Rockefeller fights to keep his monopoly intact a new generation of businessmen is facing a new set of challenges as they struggle to get their companies off the ground.
- I have set out to build the best motor car for popular use.
The Ford motor car is durable and light, weighing only 1,000lbs.
It has a four cylinder engine and is capable of speeds up to 45 miles an hour.
It is priced at $900 compared to $1 500 for the average licensed car.
Which makes it the first car affordable for the common man.
- NARRATOR: Young entrepreneur Henry Ford has created a new kind of car.
But in order to sell it he needs to get permission from the association of licensed automobile manufacturers, also known as ALAM.
ALAM owns the patent on the automobile giving them complete control over who can manufacture and sell cars.
They are, in a sense, a giant car monopoly and Ford's future now rests in their hands.
- ALAM: Thank you Mr.
Ford.
We'll be in touch.
- Thank you, gentleman.
- NARRATOR: Ford is hopeful he'll be approved by ALAM, allowing him to start his own business and to pursue his dream for the future of the car industry.
- When Ford entered the automobile business people didn't drive their own cars, they had drivers.
And so cars were seen as this luxury item.
Ford's insight was that cars could be an every day item.
They could be very utilitarian so that it was within the reach of ordinary people.
- NARRATOR: Ford has spent years developing his car for the common man.
He builds his first model at the age of 33 and calls it the quadricyle.
But the vehicle is expensive to produce and prone to breaking down.
Ford's second attempt-- Model A--is much more suited to the needs of modern America.
But he can't begin selling it without permission from ALAM.
- ALAM was successful in blackmailing other automobile companies saying, "you have to be licensed by us or we will sue you.
And we own this patent.
" - NARRATOR: After months of deliberation the ALAM board reaches its decision.
Henry Ford's application is rejected.
It's a crushing blow.
The auto cartel has stopped him in his tracks.
But Henry Ford is determined to show the world that to succeed in America all you need is integrity and ingenuity.
The next generation of businessmen is on the rise.
Henry Ford is battling a powerful cartel for the right to make a car he believes in.
The Association of Licensed Automobiles manufacturers owns the patent on the automobile and budding car makers like Henry Ford need its permission to sell cars.
After being rejected by ALAM, Ford is left with few options but he isn't about to give up on his dreams.
- Ford thought that the whole thing was ridiculous.
That there could not be a patent on the idea of the automobile.
That the automobile was not the property of one single individual.
- NARRATOR: Ford is determined to get around ALAM'S stranglehold on the auto industry.
But he's just one man going up against a virtual monopoly.
If he's going to be a success, without ALAM, he's going to need to make a name for himself.
- It's a very simple thing on the make or break decision: it's the gut and that's what separates the great leaders and the great successes.
And if you can't listen to it and you don't have it, you're never gonna get it 'cause it's never gonna come from someplace else.
- NARRATOR: Henry Ford challenges the owner of the biggest car company in the country to a race.
Alexander Winton is also known as the fastest driver in America and a prominent member ofALAM.
Beating Winton with a car of his own design has the potential to give Ford the boost he needs to start his own company.
There's just one problem, Henry Ford had never raced a care before.
- It's a David and Goliath scene.
Winton's famous, world record holder, has this fancy race car.
Ford, the local boy made good.
- NARRATOR: Henry Ford's upset win over the fastest man in America makes him instantly famous.
- Ford's a hero and this is really the first big time, I think, that he becomes a celebrity.
The Ford name gets out there and he milks it for everything that it's worth, and it was a very crucial part of Ford getting investors for the Ford Motor Company.
- NARRATOR: Ford raises $28,000--or $700,000 today.
Enough money to build his first factory in Highland Park, Michigan and before long he's producing 1 5 cars a day, priced low enough for almost any American.
- When it finally does break through, it is sort of gratifying because you--you're starting to see the reality of what you always believe.
That--that the vision you had that someday the world would be different is starting to move in that direction.
- NARRATOR: Henry Ford's early success puts him on the map.
But ALAM takes notice and hits him with a lawsuit claiming he's breaching their patent on the automobile.
- You see all these huge conglomerations suing people over patents.
The big guys are taking advantage of the little guys, trying to find whatever angle they could and using their might.
And those with the best tricksters win.
- NARRATOR: While Henry Ford prepares to bring his fight for the little guy to a Detroit court, the trial to bring down Standard Oil is starting to get ugly.
- Mr.
Rockefeller, we have evidence that you placed several refineries out of business.
- Not to my knowledge.
- Do you accept that Standard Oil has enjoyed profitability higher than most industries? - Our profitability is no higher than that of US Steel.
I haven't heard of anyone attempting to break up U.
S.
Steel.
- NARRATOR: While Rockefeller is fighting to save his company, J.
P.
Morgan has been able to keep his steel monopoly of the government's hit list.
He's used his power and influence to broker a number of deals for the nation applying the might of U.
S.
Steel to strengthen the country's infrastructure.
But Morgan's biggest deal is just getting started in Central America.
For years, attempts have been made to build a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Such a canal would cut East to West travel time in half saving ships over 8,000 miles per trip.
But no one's had the power to make it happen, until now.
J.
P.
Morgan acts as the middle man for the government and raises $40 million dollars - OR $7 billion today-- to get the project started.
The Panama Canal is the most ambitious construction project the United States has ever undertaken.
Over 75,000 workers labor in brutal heat, fighting off deadly diseases, digging a canal 51 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
- To assemble the manpower, the material, and the finances; to cut a swath through the middle of Panama and join the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean--only an industrially sophisticated nation could do that.
- NARRATOR: The Panama Canal embodies everything that makes America the most powerful country on the planet.
Built on steel, powered by electricity and running on gasoline.
And it's all made possible due to the financial might of one of the country's most powerful men.
But the age of the monopoly is still on trial and the unchallenged power the Titans have used to amass their empires is not going to last forever.
Decades of unprecedented growth have transformed America into an industrial super power.
The change has been driven by some of the largest companies the world has ever seen: U.
S.
Steel, Standard Oil and General Electric.
But it also comes with a cost.
Workers are outraged over dangerous conditions at factories across the country.
- Nobody will break us! Nobody! - NARRATOR: And the gap between the rich and the poor is bigger than it's ever been.
Many are convinced that America's largest companies are holding the country back.
The age of monopoly is under threat.
- I hate monopolists.
I fought monopolists all my life.
I always wanted an even playing field, but I had to fight for an even playing field for myself.
- NARRATOR: Over a 40 year career John Rockefeller used innovation and ingenuity to create a corporate empire unlike any the world has ever seen.
But he was also notoriously ruthless and many believe he went too far.
For John D.
Rockefeller, judgment day is here in what's become the trial of the century: The People versus Standard Oil.
- The picture painted of Standard Oil is a depressing one.
No trust in the history ofAmerica has been so destructive in its pursuit of profit.
Time and time again we have heard how Standard Oil has used secret kickbacks from the railroads, been routinely engaged in predatory pricing, used intimidation and exclusive sales territories to put refineries out of business.
For over thirty years, Standard Oil has been on a mission to crush its competition and establish itself as a monopoly to hoist up the price of kerosene.
Mr.
Rockefeller, before the court renders its decision, do you have anything you wish to say? - When I came into the oil industry, there was chaos.
I brought order.
I took a second rate, inefficient market and built an industry.
It was done the way it was because that's the way it had to be done.
No one complained when I brought light into every home.
No one complained when I provided thousands ofjobs, or millions of dollars from exports.
Oil is what this country runs on.
You call it monopoly, I call it enterprise.
- (people murmuring) - Now, you tell me, why am I here? - (gavel bangs) - (people murmuring) - NARRATOR: As the court adjourns to deliberate Rockefeller can only await his company's fate.
Hundreds of miles away a new kind of businessman, Henry Ford, also waits.
A panel of federal judges will decide whether Ford can continue to freely manufacture and sell his model A car.
The association of licensed automobile manufacturers is suing Ford for a royalty on every car he sells.
Ford knows those royalties would drive up the cost of his car putting it out of the reach for the average consumer.
For most early car makers, the lawsuit would be a devastating setback, but for Ford it's something different--an opportunity.
- People react to failure in one of two ways.
Either they get scared and give up.
Or they take that failure that--as a learning experience and they kind of use that experience to redouble their efforts.
- Ford is convinced the era of unchecked monopolies is over.
So as his lawsuit winds its way through court he openly defies the order from ALAM and continues building and selling his cars.
He believes there's a better way to conduct business in America and he's determined to make it a reality.
- Henry Ford was able to position himself as an anti-monopolist, really in a certain way, as a kind of antithesis of the Rockefellers and the Carnegies.
He is a kind of heroic individual entrepreneur, who believed in competition, who believed in developing a product and bringing it to the people.
- NARRATOR: Ford begins paying his workers a livable wage, $5 per day, more than double the rate of most U.
S.
factories.
But Ford isn't just paying his workers better, he's also getting more out of them.
He innovates a new system for producing cars.
Rather than hand crafting each car one at a time, his are assembled by a line of workers, piece by piece.
It's called the assembly line and it completely changes manufacturing forever.
- Ford didn't invent mass production.
But he perfected mass production.
He understood that a complicated product like an automobile could be simplified and could be made less expensive if the same thing was produced again and again and again.
- NARRATOR: Using the assembly line, Ford workers can build cars up to 8 times faster than any other automobile factory in the world.
What once took 12 hours to assemble, now takes an hour and a half.
The innovation allows Ford to standardize the 8-hour workday, 5 days per week.
But for Ford to continue to innovate, he'll need to win his lawsuit.
His fate, like John Rockefeller's, now rests in the hands of a federal court.
Henry Ford and John D.
Rockefeller are two American icons, from different generations, on opposing sides of battle for the country's future.
As the verdicts come in, American business will never be the same.
America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth.
Transformed from a post-civil war wasteland into a budding superpower by a group of visionaries who battled the impossible to build unimaginable empires that have brought the country into the 20th century.
- With all the great entrepreneurs, it was a mix of believing in an idea, but they also recognized that they had to do some things to take that idea and make it real.
- NARRATOR: After decades of doing whatever it took to crush the competition, John D.
Rockefeller is fighting to save the company he built from nothing into one of the largest and most dominating corporations on the planet.
- Big business is a dangerous thing in the eyes of many because of the power it wields.
- JUDGE: The U.
S.
government Versus Standard Oil.
- NARRATOR: The biggest anti-trust trial of all time is about to reach a verdict.
444 witnesses have taken the stand, 12,000 pages of testimony have been recorded, but in the end it all comes down to the testimony of one man.
ROCKEFELLER: You call it monopoly, I call it enterprise.
- NARRATOR: John Rockefeller has done all he can to keep his monopoly intact, but the fate of Standard Oil is out of his control.
JUDGE: In the case of the United States against the Standard Oil Company, this hearing has reached a decision.
This court determines against the Standard Oil Trust on account of its unreasonable business practices, which are in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
The Standard Oil Trust must be broken up within six months.
- (gavel bangs) - (people murmuring) - (people talking) - REPORTER: Is this the end of Standard Oil? - NARRATOR: John Rockefeller's Standard Oil is completely dismantled, broken up into 34 smaller companies.
The age of the monopoly is over.
The takedown of Standard Oil bodes well for the rising guard of a new generation of businessman-- most of all Henry Ford.
Ford awaits the future of his company.
After the powerful auto Cartel, ALAM, charged him with breaching their patent on the automobile and tried to shut him down.
It's a potentially life-changing moment not just for Ford, but for the future of every industry in the country.
In a surprise decision, the court rules in favor of Henry Ford.
ALAM has no legal claim to the design of the car.
Henry Ford is free to innovate without repercussion.
- Well, guys, that was it.
Let's go sell some cars.
- NARRATOR: Ford's dream is made a reality.
The car belongs to everyone.
- Ford's success put him forward in American life as a new kind of businessman but, in crucial ways, unlike Rockefeller or Carnegie he wasn't trying to gain a monopoly.
He was trying to bring a product to the people.
The American population ate this up and they made Henry Ford a kind of folk hero.
- NARRATOR: Ford seizes the momentum and his factories go into overdrive.
His assembly lines starts producing a revolutionary new car at a record rate.
It's called the Model and it costs only $825.
For the first time, a car the common man can afford.
- Henry Ford created what became the most important industry in the American economy.
He had no idea of the enormous impact it would have on almost every sector ofAmerican life.
He literally changed America, the way we live, the way we do things, and the way we go about our business.
Ford's reputation won't always be so positive, but his revolution inspires an entire generation of visionaries who will transform the fabric ofAmerican life.
Childhood friends William Harley and Arthur Davidson attach an engine to a bicycle and begin selling motorcycles to the masses.
Milton Hershey applies Henry Ford's assembly line model to the mass production of chocolate.
Chicago merchant, William Wrigley takes his chewing gum national and in Hollywood, Polish immigrant, Max Factor, begins distributing cosmetics for movie stars to drug stores across the country inventing a completely new consumer product--make-up.
This new breed of businessman is doing things a different way.
They're creating products for the masses, while paying their employees a livable wage.
With safe working conditions and a standard 40-hour work week.
The era of Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan looks like it may have come to an end.
But America's three most powerful men are just as relevant as ever before.
Standard Oil gasoline stations appear across the country fueling Henry Ford's cars, cars that are built using Carnegie's steel in factories powered by J.
P.
Morgan's electricity.
The new breed of businessman may be doing things different from their predecessors but their innovations wouldn't be possible without the groundwork laid by men like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, J.
P.
Morgan and John D.
Rockefeller.
The result is broad prosperity shared throughout the country and perhaps America's greatest innovation yet, a thriving and prosperous middle class.
- The Industrial Revolution created the development of the middle class.
It created wealth that we never would've imagined possible before.
- NARRATOR: John Rockefeller may have lost his court case, but the smaller companies created from Standard Oil will go on to become corporate giants with names like Exxon, Mobil and Chevron and John Rockefeller is a shareholder in each new company.
- It's ironic, isn't it? I mean, it's a great moment in American history and it established the principle that monopolistic practices should not be for the future and that sounds really good.
Except now they were all separate and my great grandfather had large amounts of stock in every one of them.
He made more money than he ever made in his life.
The effect on John D.
Rockefeller was absolutely blissful from his point of view.
- NARRATOR: Even in defeat, John Rockefeller becomes the richest man in the history of the world with a net worth of almost $660 billion dollars in today's money.
With the stranglehold of the monopolies over, Americans now realize that anything is possible as long as they work together.
The nation is more powerful than ever and that power will soon be needed.
On a brisk spring morning, two years after the breakup of standard oil, John Rockefeller joins his old rival Andrew Carnegie to mourn the loss of one of their own.
Less than a month from his 76TH birthday, J.
P.
Morgan dies in his sleep.
Morgan leaves such a mark on American finance that the New York Stock Exchange shuts down, an honor normally reserved for the passing of a president.
- J.
P.
Morgan certainly was the foremost name in banking in terms of creating modern finance and you can't have a modern economy without a modern, effective functioning banking system.
He was as influential as any of the Titans of that day.
- NARRATOR: While the old rivals once saw each other as cutthroat competitors now, in their twilight years, the fathers of American business have found a mutual respect.
For Rockefeller and Carnegie, Morgan's passing is a reminder-- time is running short and the realization triggers a new contest.
No longer is their competition about who makes more money, now the question is who can give more away.
- Andrew Carnegie was the first of the big capitalists of this era to be bitten by the philanthropy bug.
He decided that he was going to use his wealth to good purpose and he said that a man who dies rich dies disgraced.
- Andrew Carnegie was not a very popular man among his millionaire friends because he demanded that the millionaire has to give away all of his money.
- There's nothing wrong with making a lot of money.
Making money is fun.
I enjoy that very much.
But I enjoy giving away money, even more so.
- Carnegie gives away more than $350 million dollars - $67 billion, today.
Most goes to education and his favorite cause--libraries.
As more than 2,500 "Carnegie libraries" are built in 49 states and around the world.
But even in this contest Carnegie will be bested by his old rival.
John Rockefeller will outlive Carnegie by 13 years.
That time--and his greater worth--allows him to give away more money than Carnegie Is ever able to.
Throughout his life Rockefeller has donated millions-- to his church and numerous universities.
At the age of 73, he creates the Rockefeller foundation with a personal endowment of $100 million dollars--the equivalent of 38 billion today.
That money will go on to advance public health around the world for decades.
- My great-grandfather, he went full bore into philanthropy.
Whether that was a duty under a sort of a Baptist stricture, or whether it just came pouring out of him, I'm just not sure.
But it doesn't make any difference, he did it.
- NARRATOR: John Rockefeller will live to be 97 years old and gives away more $530 million dollars in his lifetime.
Gifts that, today, would total over 100 billion.
- I look at Carnegie, I look at what Rockefeller did and I revere these people--for the second half of their lives-- and they certainly are, they're inspirations to people who have managed to be able to accumulate some wealth and want to be able to say, you know what, I now want to help others.
- NARRATOR: As the nation heads deeper into the 20TH century, millions ofAmericans, for the first time ever, are able to take part in the American dream, employed in well-paid and safe jobs.
Manufacturing products they themselves can now afford.
The country is united with a robust economy that benefits not just the rich, but everyone.
It's the beginning of one of the longest periods of prosperity America will ever see.
- It wasn't by accident that the 20th century became, you know, the American century.
America made the greatest strides in terms of harnessing these new technologies.
We simply could out produce any other nation in this world by the time the 20th century rolled around.
And that clearly put us in a position to drive the global agenda.
It was on the back of the Industrial Revolution.
- NARRATOR: But as World War I breaks out in Europe, the world looks for help.
It looks to America.
Just 50 years removed from the ashes of the Civil War, America has become a global super power.
By April of 1917, the country enters the war sending troops, supplies and weapons.
Resources that will help bring peace to the world.
But those resources would have never been possible without the contributions of a small group of visionary men.
Men who sparked a revolution that forever changed America.
- America was transformed by the vision, the incredible hard work and determination, and the willingness to take big risks that these men display.
There is also no question that these men could not have done what they did anywhere else but America, because this place allows more people to dream than any other place in the world.
All that matters is how big do you want to dream and how hard do you want to work? - NARRATOR: From a broken country into the most powerful nation on Earth, they didn't discover this modern America, they built it.