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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE PROGRESS OP SCIENCE 



INCORPORATED CHARITIES 

 The bill before the congress to in- 

 corporate the Rockefeller Foundation 

 opens up many social, educational and 

 scientific problems. Its objects are 

 stated to be " to promote the well- 

 being and advance the civilization of 

 the peoples of the United States and 

 its territories and possessions, and of 

 foreign lands, in the acquisition and 

 dissemination of knowledge, in the pre- 

 vention of suffering and in the promo- 

 tion of any and all the elements of 

 human progress." The bill names as 

 incorporators of the foundation John 

 D. Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller, 

 Jr., Fred T. Gates, Starr J. Murphy 

 and Charles 0. Heydt. The amount of 

 the endowment is not known, but it is 

 assumed that it will be very large, as 

 Mr. Rockefeller has already given 

 fifty-three million dollars to one board 

 of much narrower scope. 



There should be nothing but sincere 

 appreciation of Mr. Rockefeller's gen- 

 erosity and public spirit. It is quite 

 absurd to fancy that he has sinister 

 motives or any other wish than to do 

 good with his wealth. This would be 

 the right attitude even if the money 

 had been obtained by improper meth- 

 ods. But there are probably not many 

 men of affairs in America whose trans- 

 actions if so fully known w 7 ould be less 

 open to blame. Secret rebates and 

 harsh competition are the charges. 

 There are not many clergymen or 

 statesmen who refuse to accept rebates 

 from the railways and competition to 

 the limit of the law is the common 

 method of business. As a matter of 

 fact, there has never been a man of 

 business who has done so much to 

 abolish competition as Mr. Rockefeller, 

 who will probably be looked upon here- 

 after as the principal promoter of 

 socialism. 



Mr. Rockefeller's corporation for 



charity and public service is less orig- 

 inal and less imposing than his busi- 

 ness corporation. It is insignificant 

 beside the Roman Catholic Church in 

 the middle ages or beside what is now 

 being done by every state for charity 

 and education. Mr. Rockefeller's 

 wealth would scarcely support the 

 public schools of the country for a 

 single year. None the less a corpora- 

 : tion of this kind will for a time have 

 considerable power and there is some 

 reason to fear that it will not be 

 wholly beneficial. 



Society is concerned more about the 

 consumption of wealth than about its 

 ownership, so long as the ownership is 

 not used outside the ordinary methods 

 of business. It is obvious that wealth 

 is consumed more profitably in pro- 

 moting the acquisition and dissemina- 

 tion of knowledge and the prevention 

 of suffering than along the paths which 

 lead to the divorce courts. But it is 

 not certain that it is better to divert 

 capital from business enterprises, tie 

 it up in real estate and lands exempted 

 from taxation, and use the income per- 

 manently for charity. What may hap- 

 pen is shown by the Roman Catholic 

 Church, which in the middle ages ac- 

 quired naif the wealth of the nations 

 and instead of contributing to the ad- 

 vancement of civilization became on 

 the whole a barrier to progress. 



Other corporations for public and 

 charitable purposes are controlled by a 

 board representing a church, the educa- 

 tional interests of a community, or the 

 like, and have some definite object. 

 This new corporation represents and 

 is controlled by the Rockefeller family 

 and its scope is unlimited. An emer- 

 gency fund for the promotion of civil- 

 ization appeals to the imagination, but 

 it will not be easy to administer it. 

 We have had recently experience of 

 two such funds w T ith more limited 



