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In 1919 Pierre duPont became a member of the State Board of Education and forthwith organized the Delaware School Auxiliary Association to demonstrate what good schools should be and how much they would cost. He is the one U. S. multi-millionaire who has made the public schools his hobby. This one experiment has cost him $5,000,000. In order to free the state of the expense of a dual system, Mr. duPont undertook to build all of the Negro schools. Thus far he has erected 86 schools for Negroes. At present he is building a Negro High School in Wilmington which will cost $860,000, exclusive of the land contributed by the city. Also he has built and given to the state 20 schools for white pupils, and has pooled his money with local districts in erecting 12 schools. Guided by the best experts available, Mr. duPont has provided model accommodations for 17,300 of Delaware's 40,000 school children. Up to the present the state has hardly lifted a finger toward new public school construction and hence the crisis.
But how could Delaware do anything with an empty treasury? In 1925, Pierre duPont, who had been handling a billion dollar corporation, accepted the tax commissionership for his small commonwealth of 240,000 population. The treasury was empty because the tax office was not adequately organized and the taxes were not collected strictly. In less than two years he has accumulated not only enough money for the maintenance of an up-to-date public school system but has reported to the legislature now in session between two and three million dollars cash surplus in the school fund available for immediate school construction on the pay-as-you-go basis, with no resort to state bonding.
Here is where he crossed the tracks of the politicians. Delaware has a $3-per-capita filing fee or tax. If this tax were abolished 100,000 people would cheer for the politicians. It would also leave the bulk of the income tax to be paid by about 680 well-to-do people in Wilmington and environs (many of them duPonts). As a vote-pulling measure it might be tremendously popular. Pierre duPont could go on putting millions of dollars into the school system while most of the beneficiaries would never feel a burden.
So Mr. duPont called a halt. He felt his commonwealth was becoming a feudal state. Delaware was becoming too dependent upon private beneficence for her public works. Generosity had begun to eat into the self-respect of citizenship. Public conscience seemed to need time to breathe and reassert itself. Huge dividends from DuPont, General Motors and other sources were diverted from the channels they have taken for a decade while Pierre duPont sat back to see what would become of a hobby as dear to him as Bach symphonies and horticulture. Philanthropy, he must have reflected, can be a bigger gamble than poker, and often without the fun.