I have described how, under the influence of modern science and the higher criticism of the Bible, I came to disbelieve altogether in the peculiar tenets of the Baptist Church, or in the doctrines generally held by orthodox Protestants, and to reject the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures. But I still called myself a Christian in the true meaning of the term, for I tried to cherish and to propagate the Spirit of Jesus in the world. I believed this Spirit to be all that is vital in Christianity or of permanent and universal value. My religion became, and still is, simply the service of humanity in the Spirit of Jesus. It is the religion of Jesus, of science, and of evolution alike. Creeds, churches, sects, religious organizations, and all the agencies of civilization are to be valued and used only as they are agents in the service of humanity on earth. And so I had become prepared in sympathy for a wider service than any or all of the distinctive religions.
Up to 1902, when we sold out Mr. Rockefeller’s great iron-mining and transportation companies, my time and energy had been so engrossed with Mr. Rockefeller’s business interests and current benevolence as to leave me little time for the working out of any plans of world benefaction. I did, indeed, use my leisure in reading and study, and perhaps I could not have hastened matters much even if I had been more free. I was studying civilization, its origin and history, trying to analyze it, separate it into its elements, and find out, as best I might, in what human progress really consists, and in what ways progress is to be promoted.
For the study of world philanthropies, Mr. Rockefeller’s office was an excellent laboratory. For we received appeals daily from every sort of agency of human progress and well-being, not only in the United States, but in all civilized foreign lands, with able and sometimes eloquent descriptions of their work, their efficiency, and their claims. Not only so, but we were favored with the views and often the elaborate plans of distinguished social reformers and dreamers the world over. These letters and appeals passed through my hands and it was my duty to study them, to inquire about them, to reflect on them, and to encourage such of them as I thought worthy by favorable report to Mr. Rockefeller.
Along with these studies and reflections, 1 was confronted with Mr. Rockefeller’s fortune. He continued, as do all men, in the habits and feelings of earlier life. He did not seem to realize, as I sometimes thought, the immensity of his fortune. He was a born money-maker, and a born money-saver. But even had it not been so, even if he had become alarmed at his colossal and every year more colossal accumulation, it was no longer in his power, from the time I first knew him, to prevent or hinder the incoming flood. And what oppressed me was not merely that Mr. Rockefeller was being inundated with money. I trembled as I witnessed the unreasoning popular resentment at Mr. Rockefeller’s riches, to the mass of the people a national menace. This popular prejudice was, I say, unreasoning. Mr. Rockefeller was using all his wealth, always and only, in the public interest. He squandered none of it. On himself he used very little of his income. All of it that he did not give away, he employed in the development of the railroads, the manufactories, the mines, the agriculture and commerce of the nation. No citizen since the founding of our republic had made such vast permanent contributions to the wealth and well-being of the American people. Moreover, practically every dollar of the Rockefeller fortune had been created by economies in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of oil. It was money made by being saved. It was in this sense earned money. It was taken from nobody. If he could undersell his competitors it was because of economies in manufacture, sale, and delivery and, though the rivals complained passionately, the people profited. If he came at length to manufacture and sell the bulk of the oil, it was because the people in great majority found advantage in consuming his oil. No doubt the Standard Oil Company could have sold more cheaply, but it is a universal principal that a product is worth what it will bring.
It was not, however, the unreasoning public prejudice against Mr. Rockefeller, but what was to be the destiny of his vast fortune, that chiefly troubled me. Was it to be handed on to posterity, as other great fortunes have been handed down by their possessors, with scandalous results to their descendants and powerful tendencies to social demoralization? I saw no other course but for Mr. Rockefeller and his son to form a series of great corporate philanthropies for forwarding civilization in all its elements in this land and in all lands: philanthropies, if possible, limitless in time and amount, broad in scope, and self- perpetuating.
I knew very well that Mr. Rockefeller’s mind would not work on mere abstract theories. He required concrete practical suggestions, and I set about framing them.
It was not until 1905 that I ventured with many misgivings to approach Mr. Rockefeller with the question of the use and disposition to be made of his fortune. It might be urged that I was trespassing on a domain in which I had no proper business. But to myself it was very intimately my business, for I had come clearly to see that unless Mr. Rockefeller were to make some such disposition of his fortune, or a great part of it, my life was doing more harm than good.
So at last I broke my silence. I wrote a letter. It is dated June third, 1905. Up to this time Mr. Rockefeller had given many millions to the University of Chicago and had made a beginning with the Rockefeller Institute, but he had made no contributions to philanthropy commensurate with the greatness of his fortune; and, so far as I know, had made no dispositions for the future. The following is the letter, improved in conciseness, but unchanged in substance:
“I have lived with this great fortune of yours daily for fifteen years. To it, and especially its uses, I have given every thought. It has been impossible for me to ignore the great question of what is to be the end and use of all this wealth. You have not made me the confidant of your thoughts in this, which neither surprises nor grieves me. Nevertheless, I venture, after long hesitation, to lay my thoughts before you.
“Two courses seem to me open. One is that you and your children, while living, should make final disposition of this great fortune in the form of permanent corporate philanthropies for the good of mankind. It seems to me that either you and those who live now must determine what shall be the ultimate uses of this vast fortune, or at the close of a few lives now in being it must simply pass into the unknown, like some other great fortunes, with unmeasured and perhaps sinister possibilities.
“To me, of course, beyond decent provision against want for the unborn who may come after, this great fortune should be dedicated to and legally secured for the service of mankind by those who live. It seems to me that any other course than this is morally indefensible. The moral responsibility of accumulating this vast fortune is, of course, your own. The moral responsibility of discharging this responsibility, in the eyes of God and man, is, with inexorable logic, also your own. It is clear also that no one can be so well fitted to discharge this great trust as he whose qualities of mind have accumulated the fund. If you and Mr. John Junior are, therefore, to discharge this trust while you live, there is only one thing possible to be done, and that is to provide legally incorporated endowment funds under competent management, with proper provision for succession, which shall be specifically devoted to the promotion of human well-being.
“This granted, the things to be done become obvious, though by no means easy. They are to ascertain—
“First, what are the prominent lines of human need and human progress? It is a well studied but difficult field of inquiry.
“Second, can men be found competent to administer these trusts now and in successive generations?
“Third, what elements of human progress suggest themselves as of sufficient practical importance and promise as to invite specific legal endowment?
“By way of illustration, let me suggest that there might well be a great fund for the promotion of a system of higher education in the United States.
Again, there might well be a fund for the promotion of medical research throughout the world.
Again, a fund for the promotion of the fine arts and refinement of taste in the United States, and the development of a distinctive American Art, just as the art of Greece represented Greek life.
Again, a fund for the promotion of scientific agriculture and the enrichment of rural life in the United States.
“Again, a fund for the promotion of Christian ethics and Christian civilization throughout the world.
Again, a fund for the promotion of intelligent citizenship and civic virtue in the United States.
“Several other general funds have occurred to me, but I do not venture even to mention them in this merely cursory, tentative, and illustrative list.
“These funds should be so large that to become a trustee of one of them would make a man at once a public character. They should be so large that their administration would be a matter of public concern, public inquiry, and public criticism. They should be so large as to attract the attention and the intelligence of the world, and the administration of each would command the highest expert talent.
“Is it possible to devote this greatest of private fortunes hitherto to worthier or nobler ends? It is true that no historic personage has made benefactions so vast or so broad in scope as those here contemplated, but nothing less would befit the vastness of your fortune and the universality of its sources.”
The Rockefeller philanthropies have become world-wide and world-famous for their efficiency. If I were asked to make an estimate of the aggregate benefaction to date, of the two Rockefellers—father and son—I could not venture a guess of less than a Thousand Million Dollars, and under the present direction of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Junior, and his great and varied staff, the outflow of annual benefaction is ever broadening and enlarging.
A study of the Rockefeller benefactions will show that they form a comprehensive and carefully studied plan, comprising quite precisely the elements of civilization, as analyzed by distinguished authors. Professor William G. Morey, for illustration, in his summary of the elements of civilization, reduced them to six. These consisted of progress in (1) the Means of Subsistence, (2) Government and Law, (3) Language and Literature, (4) Philosophy and Science, (5) Art and Refinement, (6) Morality and Religion. To these 1 venture to add two more.
They are (7) Health and Hygiene, and (8) Reproduction and Eugenics. The Rockefeller Philanthropies at home and abroad will be found to fall quite consciously and precisely into these eight categories of civilization.
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Mr. Rockefeller’s Benefactions – Their Spirit
Chapters In My Life 