Toward the well-being of mankind: Rockefeller philanthropy and the problem of economic research

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

Volumn 18, Issue , 1998, Pages 85-129

  Hewa, Soma ^a  

^a MOUNT ROYAL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

Frederick T. Gates; Philanthropy; R D; Rockefeller Foundation

Indexed keywords

EID: 84937185703     PISSN: 0144333X     EISSN: 17586720     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/01443339810788597     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. For a critical study on the role of Rockefeller philanthropy in medicine see, E. Richard Brown, Rockefeller Medicine Man (Berkeley, University of California Press), 1979
2. Howard S. Berliner, A System of Scientific Medicine (New York, Tavistock Publications), 1985
3. Soma Hewa, Colonialism, Tropical Disease and Imperial Medicine: Rockefeller Philanthropy in Sri Lanka (Lanham, University Press of America), 1995.
4. For a specific discussion on the development of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, see Steven C. Wheatley, The Politics of Philanthropy (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press), 1989. An important bibliography of essays and books based on a wide range of topics related to Rockefeller philanthropy is available from the Rockefeller Archive Centre, Tarrytown, New York.
5. Between 1992 and 1928, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, headed by Beardsley Ruml, provided about $41,000,000 to social scientific research through various universities and the United States Social Science Research Council. Ruml, with the help of Charles E. Merriam of the University of Chicago, established the Social Science Research Council in 1923, which became instrumental in promoting social scientific research in the United States. See Donald Fisher, Fundamental Development of the Social Sciences: Rockefeller Philanthropy and the United States Social Science Research Council (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press), 1993
6. Martin Bulmer, “Support for Sociology in the 1920s: The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and the Beginnings of Modern, Large-Scale, Sociological Research in the University.” The American Sociologist, 1982:17, pp. 51–54
7. Martin Bulmer and Joan Bulmer, “Philanthropy and Social Science in the 1920s: Beardsley Ruml and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, 1922–29.” Minerva, 1981:19, pp. 347–407.
8. For a comprehensive review of the debate on the role of Rockefeller philanthropy in the social sciences see, Barry D. Karl and Stanley N. Katz, “Foundations and Ruling Class Elites,” Daedalus, 1987: (Winter), pp. 1–40.
9. Raymond B. Fosdick, The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York, Harper and Brothers), 1952, p. 27
10. Frederick T. Gates, Chapters in My Life (New York, Free Press), 1977, p. 206.
11. Fosdick, Chapters in My Life, 1977, p. 193.
12. RA, Gates Collection, In Opposition to Endowment of Economic Research, March 19, 1914. Box 2, File 24.
13. Gates was a member and in the beginning generally the chairman of all of the Boards. He wrote a biographical letter to A. S. Ochs, editor of the New York Times, in 1912, in which he listed all the key positions he held in Rockefeller philanthropy. To mention a few: Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research — Chairman of the Board of Directors, General Education Board — Chairman, Rockefeller Sanitary Commission — Chairman. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to A.S. Ochs, Editor of the New York Times, January 18, 1912. Box 3, File 5.
14. For an interesting analysis of Gates' business acumen and his skills in negotiation see, James E. Fell, Jr. “Rockefeller's Right-hand Man: Frederick T. Gates and the Northwestern Mining Investments,” The Business History Review, 1978:LII, pp. 537–61.
15. I use the term “Rockefeller family” to include both father and son, who had an enormous respect for Gates. Gates never fully relinquished his official connections with various Rockefeller philanthropic organisations. In 1926, three years before his death, he resigned from some of the boards of trustees and committees. Rockefeller Jr. wrote, “I have learned through Mr Fosdick that you have resigned from one or two boards and committees, but that with your unvarying spirit of loyalty and devotion to the enterprises which have grown out of our office, you have expressed your willingness to remain in any position where we felt your services were indispensable… I am constantly mindful of the important part which you have had in the development of many interests radiating from our office, and that I am ever appreciative of what you are, what you have done, and what I hope you will continue to do in connection with these enterprises.” RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Rockefeller Jr. to Gates, January 30, 1926. Box 3, File 59.
16. Fosdick, Letter from Rockefeller Jr. to Gates, 1926, p. 7.
17. As a shrewd business man, Gates always wanted to maintain strict control over various philanthropic organisations that he was responsible for establishing. He opposed any new appointments to boards of trustees or staff members if he was not fully consulted in the matter. For example, in 1926, when Gates was away, Rockefeller Jr. recommended Harold Swift, chairman of the board of trustees of the University of Chicago, as a new trustee of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. On his return, Gates strongly opposed the recommendation: “I esteem Mr Swift personally as you do, but his nomination involves the principles which govern the institute in its selection of officers. Also, the principle of selection involved here bears on the choice of personnel of all your philanthropies. The questions are so important that I can not adequately discuss them in a letter. I shall be glad to confer with you at the convenience.” On numerous occasions, Gates objected to such appointments simply to make sure that nothing should be done unless he had approved it in advance. He regarded loyalty and mutual confidence as important requirements in collective actions. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., November 27, 1926. Box 3, File 62.
18. Also, RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., July 2, 1917. Box 3, File 59.
19. Gates, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., 1917, p. 286. 185–6.
20. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., May 7, 1924. Box 3, File 59.
21. John D. Rockefeller, Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (New York, Sleepy Hollow Press), 1984, p. 112.
22. One particular aspect of Gates' religious beliefs that continued to shape his views toward philanthropy was his opposition to sectarianism within the Christian Church. Writing against making endowments for Churches, on May 7, 1924, Gates argued: “I scarcely know of a town in any rural community in the United States containing a thousand people that has not at least five Protestant denominations, rivalling each other, looking at each other with scant kindness instead of Christian love, with no more essential difference between them than between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.” RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., May 7, 1924, p. 4. Box 3, File 59.
23. Gates, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., 1924, p. 270., 271, 68–9
24. Gates vividly demonstrated his personal commitment to it, when he agreed to undergo experimental treatment of insulin along with his wife at the invitation of the Rockefeller Institute. In addition, he recommended to Rockefeller Jr. that he make $150,000 endowment to fifteen hospitals in the United States and Canada to promote the use of insulin in the treatment for diabetes. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., April 28, 1923. Box 2, File 36.
25. Berliner, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., 1923, pp. 54–5
26. Gates, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., 1923, p. 180–1
27. RA, Gates Collection, Addresses to Honor the Memory of Frederick Taylor Gates, by Simon Flexner, May 15, 1929. Box 3, File 62.
28. Gates, Addresses to Honor the Memory of Frederick Taylor Gates, 1929, pp. 86–7.
29. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to A.S. Ochs, Editor of the New York Times, January 18, 1912. Box 3, File 5.
30. Allen Nevins, John D. Rockefeller (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons), 1940, p. 210. 211
31. This letter was written on April 20, 1891, four months after he accepted Mr Rockefeller's offer to become his key advisor on philanthropy. The letter was found in an old letter press belonging to the American Baptist Education Society. RA, Gates Collection, How to Canvas for Money, April 20, 1891. Box 3, File 61, p. 12, p. 14, rule number 6.
32. Rockefeller Sr., How to Canvas for Money, 1891, p. 79.
33. Gates, How to Canvas for Money, 1891, p. 164. Gates counted as many as fifty thousand appeals a month for a wide range of causes from every corner of the world, p. 159, 160.
34. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Sr., January 18, 1892. Box 3, File 57.
35. Gates, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Sr., 1892, p. 162, p. 163, 277.
36. John Ettling, The Germ of Laziness (Cambridge, Harvard University Press), 1981, p. 66.
37. Gates, The Germ of Laziness, 1981, pp. 161–2, 162.
38. Nevins, The Germ of Laziness, 1981, p. 294, pp. 294–5.
39. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Star J Murphy to Frederick T. Gates Regarding Some Gifts Mrs Rockefeller Desired to Make, June 19, 1912. Box 2, File 47.
40. Her plan included the following list of gifts: Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, $100,000; Plymouth Congregational Church, Cleveland, Ohio, $10,000; The Baptist Home for the Aged, Cleveland, Ohio, $5,000; The Baptist Home for the Aged, New York City, $5,000; Women's Baptist Home Missionary Society, $100,000; Women's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, $100,000. He did not oppose the gifts for the two Baptist Homes for the Aged because “the amounts are not large.” RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Sr., In Opposition to Church Endowments, June 22, 1912. Box 3, File 47 p. 2, 286.
41. RA, Gates Collection, Thoughts on The Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions, p. 1. December 31, 1926. Box 2, File 47, p. 5.
42. A perfect example of Gates' social thinking, which he applied to Rockefeller philanthropy. Gates' views were shared by many of his contemporary liberal capitalists, who advocated philanthropy. He despised labour unions, government regulations, and believed in the innate superiority of the Anglo-Saxon people. RA, Gates Collection, Thoughts on The Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions, 1926, p. 1, pp. 1–2, 2, 2, 160, 206.
43. Wheatley, Thoughts on The Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions, 1926, p. 36.
44. Gates, Thoughts on The Rockefeller Public and Private Benefactions, 1926, pp. 205–6.
45. RA, Gates Collection, Address to Honor the Memory of Frederick Taylor Gates, May 15th, 1929, p. 14. Box 3, File 62.
46. According to Berliner, Rockefeller's opposition to the affiliation with the Rush Medical College was based on the fact that Rockefeller believed in homeopathic medicine, and did not want to see the University of Chicago, which he helped to establish, become affiliated with an allopathic school. Berliner, Address to Honor the Memory of Frederick Taylor Gates, 1929, p. 40.
47. Gates, Address to Honor the Memory of Frederick Taylor Gates, 1929, p. 180, p. 181, 186.
48. RA, Gates Collection, In Opposition to Endowment of Economic Research, p. 1. 1914. Box 2, File 24, p. 6.
49. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., May 7, 1924. Box 3, File 59, p. 186.
50. In a long memorandum, Gates admitted to several mistakes made in this organisation. He accepted his “share of blame” for not being able to articulate scientific philanthropy in a clear and precise manner during the formation of General Education Board. He argued, “We were without experience, and we attributed to others our own entire disinterestedness. Our organisation was therefore not so carefully guarded as experience would have dictated.” RA, Gates Collection, General Education Board, pp. 2–3. Box 2, File 34, p. 287.
51. RA, Gates Collection, Fundamental Principles of Mr Rockefeller's Philanthropies, Box 2, File 26.
52. Fosdick, Fundamental Principles of Mr Rockefeller's Philanthropies, p. 15.
53. Gates, Fundamental Principles of Mr Rockefeller's Philanthropies, p. 187.
54. RA, Gates Collection, In Opposition to Endowment in Economic Research, 1914, p. 6. Box 2, File 24.
55. RA, Rockefeller Foundation, History-Source Material. Vol. 3. 900, p. 676, p. 677, 679, 680, 681.
56. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Rockefeller Jr., August 18, 1914. Box 3, File 58, p. 1.
57. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Rockefeller Jr., to Gates, August 24, 1914. Box 3, File 58.
58. Gates, Letter from Rockefeller Jr., to Gates, 1914, p. 184.
59. RA, Gates Collection, Letter on Behalf of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty of His Majesty's Navy, September 1, 1919. Box 1, File 23.
60. RA, Gates Collection, Principles of Philanthropy as a Science and Art. Box 2, File 26.
61. RA, Gates Collection, Letter from Gates to Charles W. Eliot, November 1, 1910. Box 1, File 21.
62. RA, Gates Collection, In Opposition to Endowment of Economic Research, 1914, p. 2. Box 2, File 24, p. 175.
63. RA, Gates Collection, Letters from Gates to Rockefeller Sr., September 28, 1908 and Rockefeller Sr. reply to Gates on September 30, 1908. Box 3, File 58.
64. In an essay entitled, “Competition vs. Cooperation,” Gates ridiculed a professional insurance agent and many other people in business: “This morning, the agent who insures my house came to me. I had declined to re-insure in his companies, because I found that I could insure in other companies at a saving of about twenty percent. And this agent, a full grown man, actually cried, wept, because he was not to get the commissions which would fall to him on my insurance. He is one of these struggling maggots, engaged in a business in which he is not needed.” RA, Gates Collection, Competition Vs Cooperation. Box 1 File 13.
65. RA, Gates Collection, In Opposition to Endowment of Economic Research, March 19, 1914, p. 2. Box 2, File 24, p. 3, 4, 5.
66. RA, Gates Collection, Capital and Labor, p. 1. Box 1, File 9, p. 5.
67. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston), 1976, pp. 111–6. For the whole episode, most people blame Gates and Rockefeller Sr. for their hardline attitude to the strike. As Collier and Horowitz suggest, Rockefeller Sr. believed that “employment was a charity to workers” and backed up management in their strict countermeasures against the strikers.
68. Gates, The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty, 1976, p. 207.
69. RA, Gates Collection, In Opposition to Endowment of Economic Research, March 19, 1914, pp. 6–7. Box 2, File 24.
70. RA, Rockefeller Foundation, History-Source Material. Vol. 3. 900, p. 697, p. 698.
71. F.A. McGregor, The Fall and Rise of Mackenzie King: 1911–1919 (Toronto, Macmillan), 1962, p. 93.
72. RA, Rockefeller Foundation, History-Source Material. Vol. 3. 900, p. 700, p. 702, 703, 704–5, 706.
73. RA, Gates Collection, Competition Vs. Cooperation, p. 1. Box 1, File 13.
74. Gates recalled a particular scene he had witnessed when he was a boy during the grasshoppers plague in Kansas in connection with competition in business: “When I was a boy, the food of the grasshoppers, at the time of the Kansas grasshoppers plague, got to be pretty scarce. The country was as barren of any green thing as the Sahara and the grasshoppers were starving, and if you watched them closely, you could see one jerk a leg off another and eat it up.” RA, Gates Collection, Competition Vs. Cooperation, p. 1.