No More Learning

Some of these personal investments have been closed out. Where there has been a profit, the close-out required a capital gains tax of 25 per cent. These capital gains ventures of the Rockefellers are, in my opinion, on the basis of the theory of giving tax leniency to actual new ventures, fully justified and differ from capital gains leniency accorded buyers and sellers of stock and real estate in the open market, where there is not the shadow of any social contribution. Whether the brothers operate cyclically in the stock market, as their grandfather did over a broad spectrum, is not known, although the family Stock Exchange seat is still held.
The brothers, Morris reports, are "keenly interested" in making money but not by any means for the sake of mere possession or accumulation, only of "proving their ability. " 18 To them, he says, money is a mere tool with which to build. They don't like to talk about money, which by reason of constant allusion in their presence must surely be boring, but will redirect pecuniary conversations to value. Unlike lesser mortals they are in a position where they can do this on the basis of authentic impulse. Their biggest problem about money is no doubt that they have had dumped in their laps so much of what most other people desire.
Contrapuntal Enterprises
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is a foundation enterprise run by the brothers and the largest in a flotilla of others including the General Education Board, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and the like. Out of the General Education Board were financed the University of Chicago and many other educational enterprises in whole or in part, including many southern Negro colleges. The Rockefeller Foundation has been more broadly engaged in financing medical, scientific, cultural and other enterprises in vast profusion, a work the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is continuing.
There is, quite evidently, a counterpoint going far back into the history of John D. I between profit-making enterprises, originally subject to much public and judicial disapproval, and nonprofit-making enterprises that have earned wide public approval.
Anyone who does not like the way Rockefeller conducted his business affairs is, upon inquiring into his nonprofit or philanthropic enterprises, brought up short. Here the signals become crossed, as in the case of Pavlov's experiments with dogs. Original feelings of pain or disapproval are now followed by feelings of pleasure and approval. Then, as one sits back to enjoy the pleasure, one suddenly again feels a stab of pain. Observers are confused, perhaps like the Pavlovian dogs brought to a state of nervous breakdown or apathy.
There is room a-plenty here for feelings of ambivalence. Are the Rockefellers trying to improve the world? Or are they merely automatically milking it?
These questions, which reflect the Rockefellers as controversial figures, require some sort of answer. There are many persons who would blandly and patronizingly dismiss such thoughts as the product of a presumptuous writer's overheated imagination. If there were nothing to the negative side then, one should ask, why did Winthrop, who never hurt a fly, when he went to work in the Texas oil fields in 1933 find it necessary to have bodyguards and, when he returned in 1936, to get a permit to carry a gun for protection against "fanatics"? 19
Point Counter Point
The contrapuntal Rockefeller style of operation is shown by the more recent enterprise of the brothers in the international field, especially in Latin America and the Middle East but also, of all places, in Russia. Two organizations, Morris reports, were established by them as an "experiment in international cooperation. " One was the International Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC), originally started with $2 million in 1947 and soon capitalized at $10,824,000, "intended to help raise the standard of living in the localities involved--chiefly Latin America--and to return a profit, if possible, to the investors. " 20
Paralleling IBEC there was formed the American International Association for Economic and Social Development (AIA), with Nelson president of both at the inception. Because IBEC would be operating its profit enterprises in poor if not primitive areas, AIA would engage in providing health, education, research and credit facilities. AIA was nonprofit, Operations were begun in Brazil and Venezuela and later extended to other areas.
AIA put up Rockefeller funds but, following a settled Rockefeller policy, it involved others as well--at first various Venezuelan oil companies and the Corn Products Refining Company and later Pfizer Corporation do Brasil; Anderson, Clayton, Ltda; The Sulphur Institute; The Ford Foundation; and Price Waterhouse and Company. Then it called upon local governments to put up matching funds.
Since Morris reported on these enterprises they have grown, particularly in the profit area. IBEC as of 1965 had 9 plants in the United States and 135 stores in Latin America and 108 wholly or partially owned subsidiaries in various parts of the world. It had 297 common and 32 preferred stockholders and 10,090 employees. Its business included housing, retailing, credit and many other endeavors. Total assets at the end of 1965 were $142,227,662 and total sales $191,711,425. Profits for 1965 were $2,723,007. The president was R. S. Aldrich and one of the vice presidents was Rodman C. Rockefeller, Nelson's son. 21 This has manifestly become a big operation.
AIA in 1961 had total assets of $752,585, received gifts of $908,207 for the year and expended $937,444. 22
Early in 1967 it was announced (New York Times, January 16, 1967; 1:6-7) that IBEC was entering Russia and the Iron Curtain countries in a multi-billion-dollar operation. Joining 50-50 with Tower International, Inc. , of the Cleveland Cyrus Eaton interests, it
was announced that the joint enterprise would begin or complete already launched large hotels in Budapest, Belgrade, Warsaw, Prague, Sofia and Bucharest in a Rockefeller- Eaton version of an Iron Curtain Hilton chain. Also to be built were rubber plants in Russia costing considerably more than $200 million, a $50-million aluminum plant in Yugoslavia and a glass plant in Rumania. Highly profitable arrangements were announced to have been made in return for American financing and construction knowhow and can-do; materials, labor and sites would be supplied by the. Communist governments.
The entire deal was looked upon by the principals as the beginning of a highly useful "dialogue" between the capitalist West and the communist East, a really constructive thrust that can bring salvation to the ordinary run of mortals and, naturally, plenty of dollars to the promoters. Considering the stature of all the participants it was hard to see how the whole enterprise could fail to be a huge success.
These two ventures in the private development (exploitation? ) of undeveloped world regions show the general emphasis. The tax-free AIA clears the way; IBEC earns the profits. The profits of IBEC more than nourish AIA. All spells "development," international fraternization.
Almost from the very beginning the Rockefellers have followed a policy, wherever they could, of requiring that others be brought in with matching funds. In this way they have succeeded in involving a broader section of the community of wealth in any particular nonprofit enterprise.
Thus, when John D. Rockefeller put up the money to get the University of Chicago started, Marshall Field I, the department-store tycoon, was prevailed upon to provide the land, and many rich Chicagoans--Armours, Swifts, Fields and others--have from time to time contributed funds to the university. In this way the Rockefellers have been, to a large extent, bellwethers or pilots in the field of philanthropolity.
Before World War I, after Andrew Carnegie financed Abraham Flexner in a study of the medical schools that led to profound valuable reforms and the elimination of a large number of shabby diploma mills, it was decided to give the University of Rochester a medical school. Flexner approached George Eastman, the Rochester camera magnate, and explained that the cost would be $10 million. Eastman offered to put up $2. 5 million, which Flexner found inadequate. Eastman then sent word that he would put up $3. 5 million, to which Flexner is said to have replied: "That would make it a Rockefeller school, not yours. It must be yours. " Over this Eastman brooded for a few weeks and then called in Flexner, shaking his finger and shouting: "I'll put up five million--then I don't want ever to see your face again! " 23
Enter Frederick T. Gates
In this and many other instances the way was by no means smooth in cooperative money-raising. Nevertheless, this pattern of the Rockefellers, originally devised by Rockefeller's close adviser, Frederick T. Gates, head of the American Baptist Education Society, has been rather faithfully adhered to throughout. They try to put up no more than half the funds for any project.
How Rockefeller became acquainted with Gates, why he decided to make him his philanthropolic adviser, is a revealing story. Gates, a clergyman stationed in Minneapolis, was called upon by George A. Pillsbury, the flour king, to help draw up his will, by which he intended to leave several hundred thousand dollars to a Baptist school. Pillsbury decided to give immediately only $50,000 and leave them to raise a like amount, thus insuring their close supervision of the money. Then he would leave an amount in his will. Gates succeeded in raising $60,000 additional for the Pillsbury
Academy and was thereupon made head of the Baptist Education Society, which had a plan for establishing a big university in Chicago or New York. In this guise he approached Rockefeller, a Baptist official, who invited him to pass a weekend with him, during which Gates did little talking.
The oil man became interested in him [says Morris] especially when he learned that Gates was acquainted with the Merritt family in Minneapolis which owned the vast Mesabi Range iron ore deposits. John D. knew that if he could buy Mesabi Range and develop it under the techniques he had developed in the oil business he could become the master of American steel and iron. Furthermore, the Merritts needed money.
Not long afterward Gates was instrumental in getting a large loan for the Merritts, who pledged the key railroad into the iron field as security. It was Rockefeller money, although the Merritts didn't know it, and in time John D. had the railroad, and forced the Merritt family to sell out to him at his own price. The steel men immediately took alarm when they saw the Mesabi Range fall into Rockefeller hands, but John D. apparently did not want a knockdown fight and he later leased the deposit to Carnegie for fifty years. 24
The Multifacet Style
This was back in the late 1880's and early 1890's. The way Rockefeller scooped up Gates and the ultra-juicy Mesabi Range and started planning for the University of Chicago well illustrates the Rockefeller and the higher finpolitan style. This style is multifaceted.
The essence of a finpolitan project is that it be multifaceted, that it have aspects of profound profitability interlaced with do-gooding, philanthropy and favorable publicity. It must seem constructive, statesmanlike. The philanthropic thrust qualifies and protects the profit-making thrust. For this reason, almost any Rockefeller or emulatory higher finpolitan endeavor is very much like a rich four-decker sandwich: One layer is Big Business, the next layer is obviously vaguely philanthropic or cultural-scientific, the third layer represents favorable notoriety stemming both from profitability and from philanthropy and the fourth layer and the first three layers in combination represent cultural, social, political and economic power. It all adds up to power.
In the case of the Rockefellers as of others of the wealthy, there are plenty of persons ready to dispute such suggestions. Thus, Professor Nevins, writing of the elder Rockefeller, says: "Unlike James B. Duke, he never for a moment mingled private commercial interests with philanthropic acts. " 25 1 have no interest whatever in asserting that Rockefeller did or did not mingle commercial and philanthropic acts; what is at stake is simple intellectual clarity with respect to facts. On the basis of abundant evidence that Nevins himself is obliged to scan, Rockefeller did mingle profit and nonprofit activities; it would have been difficult if not impossible to avoid doing so.
The chief instrumentality of this mingling was Gates himself.
As Gates has written, owing to public reports coming out about his great wealth, Rockefeller at the time began to be "hounded almost like a wild animal" by people soliciting funds for plausible and implausible causes. Many simply wanted personal handouts. 26 From this pressure he wanted to escape, and Gates, now in Rockefeller's employ, was the man to whom solicitors were sent for screening.
"It has been customary to treat Gates as a minister who developed an interest in education and philanthropy," says Nevins. "Actually, Gates was essentially a businessman with a talent for large affairs, a keen interest in the power of money, and a passion for seeing it expended with the greatest possible efficiency. He was, in short, a man after Rockefeller's own heart . . . he was also shrewd, alert, aggressive, and capable
of driving hard bargains. The time was not far distant when this former minister, coming to New York, would teach Wall Street itself some lessons. " 27
Subsequently Nevins notes, "The man whom Rockefeller thus selected as his principal aide in philanthropy was as remarkable as any of his partners in business. In sheer ability he matched Flagler, Rogers, and perhaps even Archbold . . . he possessed an unusual combination of gifts: insight, genuine imagination, analytical power, and vision, backed by unquenchable energy, courage, and an evangelistic fervor. . . . He was often impulsive and sometimes inconsistent. . . . At bottom, as we have said, he was a businessman rather than a minister or social worker, and he soon gained a reputation for cautious, adroit, and hard-headed conduct in business affairs. " 28
Gates, like many an underling, was as flinty as his master. At the time of the strike at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in 1913 (twenty-seven dead and two mines set on fire by desperate workers), Gates stood firmly against the strikers as Rockefeller, Jr. , relented. Both had been directors of the company of which John D. Rockefeller was II a major stockholder" (Fosdick); and L. M. Bowers, the chairman, was the uncle of Gates.
Characterizing the strikers as "desperate and lawless," waging "organized and deliberate war on society," Gates said, "The officers of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company are standing between the country and chaos, anarchy, proscription and confiscation, and in so doing are worthy of the support of every man who loves his country. " 29 Actually, the strikers had been maddened with ill treatment. According to John T. Flynn, a biographer who presents a less genteel Rockefeller than Nevins, "When Henry C. Frick shocked the country by shooting down ruthlessly the striking iron workers at Homestead, John D. Rockefeller wrote him a letter approving his course and expressing sympathy. " 30 Gates and the elder Rockefeller saw pretty much eye to eye.
So talented did Rockefeller quickly find Gates that "Inevitably, Gates was soon looking after Rockefeller's investments as well as his philanthropies. " 31
Although the Standard Oil Trust absorbed all of Rockefeller's time and energy, he had nevertheless already made extensive diversified investments--in mines, steel mills, paper mills, a nail factory, railroads, lumbering, smelting properties and the like. 32 On some of these he had been stuck, through bad advice; others were not being operated properly. Gates was sent on tours of the country to look into the properties underlying the entire investment portfolio. He reported back to Rockefeller on what he found, not always favorably. Then he was given carte blanche to reorganize, revise and to bring order out of chaos.
Gates stepped into a dual role as the first director of the Rockefeller philanthropic activities and as investment manager, and he was equally good in both roles. 33
Beyond this the clergyman-humanitarian became a rabid and successful Wall Street speculator for his own account and an officer of various Rockefeller companies, notably the head of the Lake Superior Iron Ore Company. "Nothing could be stranger than the spectacle of this impecunious Baptist preacher setting out to raise funds for a religious college and winding up in a few years as the president of an iron mine and ore railroad company worth twenty millions, and finally the almoner of America's greatest multimillionaire, with the power of the purse over these vast treasures. " 34
For his role in negotiating the sale of Rockefeller ore properties to the embryo United States Steel Corporation, Gates resolutely demanded and received a commission from Rockefeller. 35 Gates had some idea of his worth in cash value.
Such being the case, the meaning of a statement is baffling when it indicates that Rockefeller never mingled philanthropy and business. There was such mingling in still
further degree when he established endowments with Standard Oil stock, all of which carried company voting power.
What became the "Rockefeller style," then, was apparently not something reasoned out in advance. Gates and Rockefeller played everything "by ear," and the style slowly evolved. But from the moment Gates joined Rockefeller formally in 1891, both the philanthropies and the satellite investments were carefully thought about and supervised by Gates while Rockefeller tuned Standard Oil up to concert pitch. In the course of time the contrapuntal role of Gates took Standard Oil into its sweep and is well exemplified today in IBEC, AIA and other new Rockefeller enterprises.
Division of World Emphasis
Just as the brothers have evolved a division of labor among types of activities so, too, have they evidently (perhaps unconsciously) divided the world into spheres of individual influence. Latin America, where Nelson has a Venezuelan ranch, appears to be his particular domain; his son, thus, is a high official of IBEC. The Orient is the particular domain of John D. III. All . areas are under the supervision of David as the head of a bank with more than 200 world branches. Laurance seems pointed toward Africa. 'Only Europe does not yet seem spoken for.
The chief chairmanships and directorships show the special orientations of interest.
John D. 111, chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, the General Education Board, the national council of the United Negro College Fund, was also as of 1966 a trustee of Princeton University, Harvard-Yenching Institute and chairman of Products of Asia, Inc. , Products of India, Inc. , and president of the Japan Society, Inc. , and the Asia Society, Inc. He was a lieutenant commander in the United States Naval Reserve during World War 11, special assistant to the under secretary of the Navy late in 1945, and
was a consultant of the Dulles Mission to Japan on the peace settlement in 1951 and a U. S. delegate to the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco in 1951. He holds the following decorations: Order of Auspicious Star of China (Kuomintang), Order of the British Empire, Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure of Japan, Grand Cordon of the Star of Ethiopia, Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant of Thailand and Commander of the Ordre des Millions d'Elephants et du Parasol Blanc of Laos.
Now, whatever else this worthy man is, taking into consideration many other directorships, trusteeships and chairmanships, he is more than an ordinary citizen with one vote at the polls. He is, also, manifestly more than a wealthy man. He is a finpol, intermeshing between governments, industries and cultural institutions.
"Because of their many friendships with missionaries, the Rockefellers had [as early as 1914] taken a keen interest in China," says Nevins. 36 There were others who churlishly believed the keen interest of the pecuniary wizard of Standard Oil related more to the fact that China was a huge market outlet for kerosene, of which Standard was then almost the sole supplier.
The Rockefellers were, at any rate, keenly interested in China, as they are now, without missionaries, interested in all of the Orient from Japan to India, where Standard Oil at least incidentally has large interests, and the General Education Board put up money to establish the China Medical Board and to build Peking Union Medical College. Up to 1952, Nevins says, the Foundation had put some $45 million into westernizing Chinese medicine, science and education. More recently, as the Communists took over China, the Rockefellers shifted Asiatic emphasis to Japan, India and other areas.
Nelson Rockefeller, three-time governor of New York, premier state of the Union, was president of Rockefeller Center from 1938 to 1945 and chairman from 1945 to 1953 and 1956 to 1958; Federal Coordinator of International American Affairs, 1940- 44; Assistant Secretary of State, 1944-45; chairman of the International Development Advisory Board (Point Four), 1950-51; Special Assistant to the President of the United States, 1954-55; Under-Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), 1953-54 and has at various times (when not helping run the government) been or remains director or trustee of various foundations, museums and organizations. A Phi Beta Kappan, he holds the Order of Merit of Chile, the National Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil and the Order of the Aztec Eagle of Mexico. Here, again, is no common person, no ordinary wealthy man, no run-of-the-mill politician. This is a finpol, a very wealthy man with an interlacing of high governmental and cultural points d'appui.
David Rockefeller, chairman of The Chase Manhattan Bank, worked his way quickly up through various jobs in the bank and is also chairman of The Chase International Investment Corporation, chairman of Morningside Heights, Inc. , a big housing development, and a director of B. F. Goodrich Company, Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. , and the vast Equitable Life Assurance Society. He was an army captain in World War II, is a director and trustee of various Rockefeller foundations and museums, and is an overseer of Harvard University, of which he is an alumnus. He holds a Ph. D. from the University of Chicago. He also holds the French Legion of Honor and the Legion of Merit.
In 1940 he published Unused Resources and Economic Waste. Here again is a high personage, far from an ordinary citizen.
Laurance Rockefeller is a similar type of Higher Organization Man. He is chairman of Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. , Caneel Bay Plantation, Inc. , Rockefeller Center, Inc. , and director of Filatures et Tissages Africains (Africa and the Caribbean are apparently his particular domains), Cape of Good Hope Corporation, Dorado Beach Hotel Corporation, president and trustee of Rockefeller Brothers Fund and trustee of the Conservation Foundation, chairman of the New York State Council of Parks, member of the corporation of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a trustee of the YWCA, director of the American Committee of International Wildlife Protection, director of Resources of the Future, director of the American Planning and Civic Association and of the Hudson River Conservation Society, commissioner and vice president of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, trustee and president of Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc. , trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, chairman of the Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center, trustee and vice president of Sealantic Fund, trustee and president of the American Conservation Association, trustee and vice president of the New York Zoological Society and director, trustee or officer of various other bodies. He is a Commandeur de L'Ordre Royal du Lion, Belgium, recipient of the Conservation Service award of the U. S. Department of Agriculture and of its Special Conservation award and a holder of the Horace Marder Albright Scenic Preservation medal. A lieutenant commander during World War II, he is a member of the Naval Air Reserve.
Winthrop trails somewhat in this august procession but is coming abreast fast via politics. Governor of Arkansas, he is also chairman of IBEC Housing Corporation and Winrock Enterprises, Inc. , conducting vast agricultural and cattle-raising enterprises in Arkansas; a director of the Union National Bank of Little Rock, Rockefeller Brothers, Inc. , and Rockefeller Center, Inc. ; a trustee of Industrial Relations Counsellors; chairman of the board of Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. , and Williamsburg Restoration, Inc. ; chairman of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission; trustee of the National Urban League, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the National Fund for Medical Education. Since 1953 he has resided in Arkansas.
Among them all they cover a great deal of ground. As anyone can see, they are community-minded, but on an international scale that gives this term a new dimension. The world is their plantation.
The Foundation Thrust
Total outlays for philanthropic or nonprofit enterprises by the founder of Standard Oil are put by Raymond B. Fosdick at $446,719,371. 22 capital sum and income therefrom of $850 million--in all well over a billion dollars. 37 Most of the income was expended in the form of grants, except in the case of Rockefeller Institute.
The capital sums were allocated as follows:
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 1902
(now Rockefeller University)
General Education Board, 1902
The Rockefeller Foundation, 1913
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, 1918-28
Total
$ 60,673,409. 45
129,209,167. 10
182,851,480. 90
73,985,313. 77
$446,719,371. 22
In recent years the capital funds of the General Education Board have been drawn down steeply for grants in the neglected field of education and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial was merged in 1928 with the Foundation. Funds for the University of Chicago came largely through the General Education Board. Coming up in place of the General Education Board has been the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Up to 1950 external grants by income and principal were as follows: 38
Rockefeller Foundation
From income
From principal
Total
General Education Board
From income
From principal
$325,754,751. 35
$125,773,613. 93
$451,528,365. 28
$132,339,912. 86
$164,427,148. 34
Total
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial
From income
From principal
Total
International Education Board
From income
From principal
Total
$296,767,061. 20
$ 27,839,809. 74
$ 27,500,000. 00
$ 55,339,809. 74
$ 6,495,807. 82
$ 11,837,482. 00
$ 18,333,289. 82
$821,968,526. 04*
Grand Total
*Here should be added $60,673,409. 45 for Rockefeller University.
The International Education Board was established by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , in 1923 but, in a very real sense, all the Rockefeller moneys are derived from the founder because nobody in the family since him has been a fortune-builder or even a conspicuous moneymaker. The grandsons have enterprises under way that appear likely to become highly profitable but not on any scale, as far as appears to date, resembling the original Standard Oil, the real honey-pie.
What remained of these funds at the end of 1950 was as follows:
Rockefeller Foundation $158,103,332. 13 39
General Education Board $ 24,624,493. 01 40
Rockefeller Brothers Fund (as of 1955) $ 59,663,273. 62 41
Total $242,391,098. 76
Of the moneys in the Rockefeller Brothers Fund the late John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , contributed $58 million in 1951 and bequeathed to it half of his estate. Reflecting part of this bequest in the amount of $65 million, at the end of 1960 the Fund showed total assets of $116,173,369. 42 Appreciation since then, as already shown, has been great.
Since 1950, of course, these funds have been generating more income, most of which has been allocated in the form of grants.
It is clear, then, that a truly stupendous sum was directed from the fortune of a single individual into various medical, educational, scientific and general cultural projects, both in the United States and abroad. As most of these moneys consisted of dollars of much greater purchasing power than the present dollar, it is evident that in dollars of current value the disbursements were of far greater weight.
That all this was part of a far-reaching plan is denied by spokesmen for the family such as Professor Nevins and Raymond B. Fosdick. To the charge of critics that the benefactions were established as "a shield against public censure," or, as some charged, "conscience money," Fosdick, following Nevins, points out that Rockefeller in his 'teens, as a pious Baptist, was already giving to the church as much as 6 per cent of his earnings. He kept a meticulous record down through the years of all such gifts, which amounted to more than $1,000 annually by 1865 and to nearly $6,000 by 1869--goodly sums in those days. He gave $558. 42 in a lump to Denison University, for example, in the late 1860's. 43
Rockefeller, in other words, gave money all along, even as he saved and acquired it, and, as it appears in the Fosdick-Nevins accounts, merely stepped up the rate when he became very wealthy. Yet, that there was more to it than a mere continuation of charitable giving, is shown when these writers quote Gates.
Mr. Rockefeller, a prudent man, apparently showed some doubt at first about proposals of large-scale largesse, if such it was. Says Fosdick:
"Mr. Gates, who could never be anything but candid and forthright, used to thunder at the elder Rockefeller, 'Your fortune is rolling up, rolling up like an avalanche! You must keep up with it! You must distribute it faster than it grows! If you do not, it will crush you and your children and your children's children. '" 44 These remarks are taken from Gates's autobiography and one wonders, if Rockefeller was such a freehanded routine giver, why Gates had to "thunder" at him to drive home the message.
What Rockefeller really thought even Gates, who described him as "a very reserved man" who revealed "little or nothing of his own innermost thoughts," did not profess to know. 45 He may have had no thoughts to keep in reserve--a plain man.
A Domesticated Machiavelli
To me it seems a disservice to the Machiavelli of Standard Oil, whom even an apologist like Nevins shows continually embroiled with business and political opponents one after the other down through the years, to attempt to domesticate him in terms of churchly estimates of genteel benevolence. As the history of Standard Oil by any author, pro or con, clearly shows, Rockefeller was of a deeply conspiratorial, scheming nature, always planning years ahead with a clarity of vision that went far beyond anything any of his associates had to offer. It seems to me far more in keeping
with what we know of the man's character, as revealed by his business career, that he embarked on his large-scale philanthropies with at least some self-serving personal ends in view.
Until Gates took over, Rockefeller had been giving money away more or less helter- skelter, mainly to Baptist missionary societies. One gets the impression that some of this giving was merely to get rid of importunate suppliants, who, as Gates said, "beset" him. 46 When Gates joined Rockefeller, he very gradually converted the magnate to the idea of "scientific giving. " 47 This "scientific giving" slowly took the form of the great foundations.
Rockefeller very early saw that he was getting some mileage from his Baptist patronage. As early as 1889 when a small Baptist publication criticized the Standard Oil Company, all of whose leading figures were Baptists, the company was stoutly defended by the Examiner, official organ of the Baptist Church. 48 Had Rockefeller and his Standard Oil colleagues all been Jews or Catholics one trembles to imagine what the anti-Rockefeller movement would have been like! It could not have escaped Rockefeller's notice that whenever his money had been bestowed he had staunch friends.
His gradual conversion by Gates, it seems to me, shows Rockefeller in a better light in terms of intelligent motivation than many of his apologists indicate. These latter show him only as a compulsive, mechanical giver from the very beginning. Actually, he was a thoroughly responsible man within the light of his own interests and his understanding of them. As the center of raging and constantly intensifying public controversy, which made him in his time "the most hated man in the world," Rockefeller might well have suspected that he was leaving a bitter inheritance to his children and grandchildren. Again, the torrent of public criticism against him, in part at least calumny, could not help but have some effect upon his wife and children however much be discounted it personally as attributable to envy. He prized his son especially, as many remarks showed, and was always deeply pained at any criticism of him. When both father and son were being publicly criticized he said: "They have no right to attack Mr. John. All my life I have been the object of assault. But they have no ground for striking at him! " 49 Possibly Mr. Rockefeller now saw some valid ground for attacks on himself.
His family was, indeed, Rockefeller's Achilles Heel and it is not at all difficult to see that he wanted to make a better public impression than the one currently dominant for the family's sake if not his own. Rockefeller, therefore, as I see him, put his mind coldly to the problem and saw that what Gates and others recommended might at least divide the forces against him, perhaps turn the tide. His first tentative ventures in large-scale philanthropy suggested that this view was valid. Rockefeller did not plunge into philanthropy. He was never a plunger, always made his moves in business, politics and philanthropy gradually and after careful thought.
Gradualism in Philanthropolity
That his large-scale entry into public philanthropy was very gradual and, after being undertaken, was spread out over a long period of time is shown by Nevins, who lists his donations for every year beginning with $2. 77 for 1855. Rockefeller kept a record of his donations, which prior to 1880, says Nevins, was incomplete. But in no year through 1877 was as much as $10,000 recorded as donations and not until 1884 was more than $100,000 donated. In 1887 the figure jumped to $284,116. 52 and in 1890 to $303,542. 78.
Up to the time when Gates joined him in 1891 his gifts had mainly been to the Baptists. In the 1890's his donations exceeded $1 million each in only five years. In 1892 his Ohio trust was dissolved by court order. Even though he had been
comparatively generous, all this up to 1900 was no more than chicken feed; the flood from the secret recesses of Standard Oil was still to come. In 1900 he put up more than $2 million and again in 1901. But in 1902, when the General Education Board and Rockefeller Institute were launched, he contributed $5,407,856. 78. Falling somewhat short of this amount for the next two years, in 1905, when public outcry against him was stupendous, he put up $13,602,820. 78. Although he was never to miss a year until death in these benefactions, the really big years were as follows:
1907
1909
1913
1914
1917
1919
1920
1928
$ 39,170,480. 52
71,453,231. 15
45,499,367. 63
67,627,095. 87
15,770,624. 48
138,624,574. 61
31,780,348. 24
19,964,455. 38
Not only did such munificence top anything else of record (and until Rockefeller and Carnegie came along, public donations were meager indeed) but the Rockefeller benefactions went nearly wholly into projects of, invariably high quality. To fault Rockefeller on the quality of his projects, one must fault the highly rated University of Chicago, Rockefeller University, the work of the Foundation in combating hookworm, yellow fever, malaria, typhus, influenza, tuberculosis, rabies, yaws, schistosomiasis and various other diseases, and the worldwide contributions to medical education, the financing of projects in experimental biology and other natural sciences, international relations and scores of other fields.
That kudos accrued to Rockefeller, particularly from the press and executive types in charge of projects in education, science and medicine, in place of the earlier brickbats, is not to be denied; but the seeking of praise for meritorious performance, if such was the case, is not in itself a fault. That Rockefeller preferred praise to adverse criticism is evident from the fact that Standard Oil early busily engaged itself in buying and surreptitiously financing newspapers. 50 The influencing of public opinion in his favor was a problem that Rockefeller long wrestled with before he found the right combination.
Prior to 1913 at least, the problem of taxes could not have influenced Rockefeller in his philanthropies because business and wealth were subject then only to piddling local taxes. Nor can it be held that the creation of the Rockefeller Foundation was a direct reflex to the advent of federal taxes in 1913 because the Foundation had long been planned, at least since 1905. The community of Big Business, it is true, was opposed to the new
taxes and Rockefeller's chief attorney, Joseph H. Choate, had been the lawyer who in 1893 convinced the Supreme Court that income taxes were unconstitutional; it was therefore necessary to amend the Constitution to enact income taxes. However, even though the advent of federal taxes did not influence the idea of the Foundation, it was gradually noticed by others that there were distinct tax advantages in making philanthropic allocations. This fact is now part of standard tax doctrine, set down in many tax treatises. Gifts to philanthropic funds pay no taxes, the income on such funds pay no taxes, and there is no inheritance tax on such funds. Furthermore, stocks placed in such endowments carry corporate voting power--a nice point. It should be recalled here that it is power really, rather than money or property, that we are concerned with.
Considerations such as these may not have occurred to Rockefeller during tax agitation prior to 1913 but it is hard to see that they could have escaped the notice of his lawyers. At any rate, the size of his philanthropic allocations increased markedly
beginning with the new tax laws. Whatever he did not allot to philanthropy was now going to incur income and estate taxes; and such taxes, he must have foreseen, would tend to increase rather than diminish.
As to the relation of taxes to philanthropolic capers the Wall Street Journal of August 2, 1967, points out that philanthropies would be sharply reduced if compensating tax reductions were reduced or repealed-an assertion made on the basis of a study by the Brookings Institution in collaboration with T. Willard Hunter, executive vice president of the Independent Colleges of Southern California. In this study there were interviewed 30 of 47 living philanthropists who in 1965 made 69 capital gifts of $1 million or more each for an aggregate of more than $93 million. The donors reported that $40 million, or 43 per cent of all, would not have been given if there was no tax reduction allowed; they also reported that had deductions been limited to the original cost of securities rather than to an inflated price, as has been proposed, the donations or allocations would have been reduced by 46 per cent. The donors themselves rated tax savings as fifth on a list of twelve considerations controlling philanthropolic maneuvers.
Actually, it can be shown that in many cases a donor can obtain for himself more indirect in-pocket income by being a generous philanthropist than by holding tightly to direct investments. Among many possible illustrations are the cases of big chemical proprietors who have donated entire schools and laboratories of chemistry to big universities, at huge but tax-deductible costs. What the chemical proprietors have now derived from the schools in the way of new discoveries and trained research chemists has given them a constant return of many hundred per cent on the original "donation. "
Peer-group esteem is gained on the finpolic circuit by such contributions that strengthen the entire finpol network. Rockefeller, finpolically speaking, was a very good neighbor, of vast benefit to all finpols.
On the basis of his own experience with legislators at the state and national level Rockefeller could not have felt reassured about what they might do with his money. He no doubt felt that he could make a more constructive disposition of it than they. With this view, if it was his, I concur. Even today one can have no rational confidence in the allocation of funds by any Congress the American people in their present low state of cultural development are likely to elect.
There were, at any rate, many advantages, perhaps foreseen and unforeseen, in the course he gradually adopted, not the least of which was wider public acceptance for himself and his family (for which he seems to me to deserve great credit), particularly at the hands of the educated and the middle classes. , The high quality of most of the Rockefeller projects particularly commended the man, and still commends him, to the cultivated, and lends strong color to the view of him as a Robin Hood who took, not from the rich for the poor but from grasping business rivals, politicians and an oafish squandering public and, now under severe public criticism, turned a substantial and possibly major portion of the loot over to institutions closely identified with high civilization--a triumph of the sardonic over the indignantly sentimental, a twisting of the knife in the philistines.
Rockefeller, thus, is a paradox. The biggest, most assiduous, most successful, sufficiently unscrupulous and most condemned acquisitor converted himself into the most munificent high-level giver. Rockefeller, late in life and possibly suiting the word to his Lord Bountiful actions, himself enunciated the elvish principle that "A man should make all he can and give all he can. " 51 If this was intended to mean (and it does not necessarily) that a man should try to make a great deal of money and give nearly all of it away, the program seems absurd to the point of the comical.
The Finpolitan Model
Although this chapter may appear, thus far, to be about the Rockefellers, it really is not. As I remarked at the beginning, the highly civilized Rockefellers: are featured here, perhaps sacrilegiously, purely for illustrative purposes. For what has become the "Rockefeller style" is in essence the finpolitan style, which copies the Rockefeller style in a general way. Many others do or pretend to do about as the Rockefellers do, perhaps not with as much earnest conviction.
"If the rich are capitalism's aristocracy," as William Manchester observes, "the Rockefellers: are its royalty. " 52 One is constrained to agree. They not only show the way in finpolitania; they invented it and appear to be deeply convinced of the constructiveness of their role, not an unusual human trait.
Various aspects of the life of the wealthy have been depicted by assorted writers. Perhaps the most popular, representing the role most of the hoi polloi see for themselves as rich people, has been the wealthy as irresponsible playboys, spendthrifts and more or less graceful idlers. This view is well conveyed in the writings of Cleveland Amory and others of the same genre. The next most compelling aspect has been the wealthy as ruthless grabbers, as shown by Gustavus Myers and Matthew Josephson. Some attempt, of less wide interest but in my view more significant, has been made to show the wealthy as contemporary social power wielders, as I and C. Wright Mills have done. On the American scene Thorstein Veblen first delved in depth into the role of the wealthy as socially irresponsible power wielders and exorbitant consumers. Individual critical biographies, as by Harvey O'Connor and John T. Flynn, have touched on all these aspects.
But the modes of being of the more mature among the established wealthy have by no means been fully explored. These modes turn out to be distant emulations, not always convincing, of the Rockefeller style. Although academic sociologists anxiously inquire into the most minute, interstitial phases of contemporary society, it is instructive to notice that there is no systematic sociology of the wealthy. The academicians seem to sense through built-in radar that this is taboo terrain and allow unanointed non-award- winning journalists, publicists, free-lancers and miscellaneous literate and offbeat ideologists to dominate the field which, it is true, promises little in the way of academic promotion. A notable exception among the certified sociologists is the suave E. Digby Baltzell, author of The Philadelphia Gentlemen and The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America, the latter a penetrating study.
"The real truth is that very few of the social scientists look very deeply into the subject [of fortunes] for fear of being thought politically radical," says Professor Floyd Hunter in The Big Rich and the Little Rich (Doubleday & Co. , N. Y. , 1965, pp. 173-74).