(See front cover)
"I believe it is a religious duty to get all the money you can, fairly and honestly; to keep all you can, and to give away all you can."
So said John Davison Rockefeller, at the age of 60, when he was fingering the yellowed leaves of a precious document, his own Ledger A, which he had kept as a 16-year-old assistant bookkeeper in a Cleveland commission house. That all-inclusive creed, conceived in youth, ex- pressed at the philosopher's age, was the lone recorded feat of Mr. Rockefeller's imagination. Otherwise, he has exhibited no great creative imagination. But give even a street car conductor a mighty creed, give him an almost perfect mathematical determination to carry it out, and he will build tracks to the ends of the earth.
There is every reason to believe that Mr. Rockefeller began to lay his tracks in Ledger A. For example, note his first entry: "September 26, 1855—January i, 1856: received $50 (wages). Paid board and washerwoman. Saved a little. Gave penny each Sabbath to Sunday School."
Today, the figures have changed. The man, approaching his Sgth birthday (July 8), does not record them or administer them, but he knows what they are. No doubt, he has often been asked, by inquisitive reporters, how many times he is worth his weight in gold. This can be computed roughly:
Estimated fortune. . $500,000,000
Gifts (see table)—. . 539,229,643
$1,039,229,643
*GIFTS OF THE ROCKEFELLERS, SR. AND JR.
Rockefeller Foundation $182,704,624
General Education Board 129,197,960
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial 73,875,457
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research 39,904,602
University of Chicago 45,000,000
American Baptist Home Mission Society 5,475,000
American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 5,725,000
Y.M.C.A. Int'l Committee 2,050,000
New York Public Library 3,500,000
Metropolitan Museum of Art 2,000,000
American Museum of Natural History 1,040,000
Jerusalem Museum 2,000,000
League of Nations Library 2,000,000
Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes (Negro) 3,500,000
Brown University 500,000
Harvard University (Fogg Museum) 500,000
University of Chicago (Divinity School) 1,000,000
Woods Hole Biological Laboratory 400,000
International Education Board... 21,000,000
Total $539,229,643
An avoirdupois pound of gold is worth $204.09. Mr. Rockefeller, at 135 pounds,* would balance $27,552.15 worth of gold on a pair of accurate scales. But it would take 37,710 times that sum of gold to balance the Rockefeller fortune and gifts.
Figures, figures; they are what the public is always hearing about Mr. Rockefeller. ROCKEFELLER GIVES A MILLION. Every U. S. reader has seen that headline. Last week, no exception, saw the announcement of the annual report of the Rockefeller Foundation, listing an expenditure of $1,223,124 "Amazing" said the public as it turned the page, failing to comprehend the figure in the light of an item in the world's broadest educational program. But, rare is the educator or the scientist who has not, or does not hope to be, aided by this program.
It has four distinct branches: