Random Reminiscences of Men and Events
When the university had been founded, and he had taken the presidency,
our great ambition was to secure the best instructors and to organize
the new institution, unhampered by traditions, according to the most
modern ideals. He raised millions of dollars among the people of
Chicago and the Middle West, and won the personal interest of their
leading citizens. Here lay his great strength, for he secured not only
their money but their loyal support and strong personal interest--the
best kind of help and cooeperation. He built even better than he knew.
His lofty ideals embodied in the university awakened a deeper interest
in higher education throughout the Central West, and stirred
individuals, denominations, and legislatures to effective action. The
world will probably never realize how largely the present splendid
university system of the Central Western States is due indirectly to
the genius of this man.
With all his extraordinary power of work and his executive and
organizing ability, Dr. Harper was a man of exquisite personal charm.
We count it among the rich and delightful experiences of our home-life
that Dr. and Mrs. Harper could occasionally spend days together with
us for a brief respite from the exacting cares and responsibilities of
the university work. As a friend and companion, in daily intercourse,
no one could be more delightful than he.
It has been my good fortune to contribute at various times to the
University of Chicago, of which Dr. Harper was president, and the
newspapers not unnaturally supposed at such times that he used the
occasions of our personal association to secure these contributions.
The cartoonists used to find this a fruitful theme. They would picture
Dr. Harper as a hypnotist waving his magic spell, or would represent
him forcing his way into my inner office where I was pictured as busy
cutting coupons and from which delightful employment I incontinently
fled out of the window at sight of him; or they would represent me as
fleeing across rivers on cakes of floating ice with Dr. Harper in hot
pursuit; or perhaps he would be following close on my trail, like the
wolf in the Russian story, in inaccessible country retreats, while I
escaped only by means of the slight delays I occasioned him by now and
then dropping a million-dollar bill, which he would be obliged to stop
and pick up.
These cartoons were intended to be very amusing, and some of them
certainly did have a flavour of humour, but they were never humorous
to Dr. Harper. They were in fact a source of deep humiliation to him,
and I am sure he would, were he living, be glad to have me say, as I
now do, that during the entire period of his presidency of the
University of Chicago, he never once either wrote me a letter or asked
me personally for a dollar of money for the University of Chicago. In
the most intimate daily intercourse with him in my home, the finances
of the University of Chicago were never canvassed or discussed.
The method of procedure in this case has been substantially the same
as with all other contributions. The presentation of the needs of the
university has been made in writing by the officers of the university,
whose special duty it is to prepare its budgets and superintend its
finances. A committee of the trustees, with the president, have
annually conferred, at a fixed time, with our Department of
Benevolence, as to its needs. Their conclusions have generally been
entirely unanimous and I have found no occasion hitherto seriously to
depart from their recommendations. There have been no personal
interviews and no personal solicitations. It has been a pleasure to me
to make these contributions, but that pleasure has arisen out of the
fact that the university is located in a great centre of empire; that
it has rooted itself in the affections and interest of the people
among whom it is located; that it is doing a great and needed work--in
fine, that it has been able to attract and to justify the
contributions of its patrons East and West. It is not personal
interviews and impassioned appeals, but sound and justifying worth,
that should attract and secure the funds of philanthropy.
The people in great numbers who are constantly importuning me for
personal interviews in behalf of favourite causes err in supposing
that the interview, were it possible, is the best way, or even a good
way, of securing what they want. Our practice has been uniformly to
request applicants to state their cases tersely, but nevertheless as
fully as they think necessary, in writing. Their application is
carefully considered by very competent people chosen for this purpose.
If, thereupon, personal interviews are found desirable by our
assistants, they are invited from our office.
Written presentations form the necessary basis of investigation, of
consultation, and comparison of views between the different members of
our staff, and of the final presentation to me.
It is impossible to conduct this department of our work in any other
way. The rule requiring written presentation as against the interview
is enforced and adhered to not, as the applicant sometimes supposes,
as a cold rebuff to him, but in order to secure for his cause, if it
be a good one, the careful consideration which is its due--a
consideration that cannot be given in a mere verbal interview.
THE REASON FOR CONDITIONAL GIFTS
It is easy to do harm in giving money. To give to institutions which
should be supported by others is not the best philanthropy. Such
giving only serves to dry up the natural springs of charity.
It is highly important that every charitable institution shall have at
all times the largest possible number of current contributors. This
means that the institution shall constantly be making its appeals;
but, if these constant appeals are to be successful, the institution
is forced to do excellent work and meet real and manifest needs.
Moreover, the interest of many people affords the best assurance of
wise economy and unselfish management as well as of continued support.
We frequently make our gifts conditional on the giving of others, not
because we wish to force people to do their duty, but because we wish
in this way to root the institution in the affections of as many
people as possible who, as contributors, become personally concerned,
and thereafter may be counted on to give to the institution their
watchful interest and cooeperation. Conditional gifts are often
criticized, and sometimes, it may be, by people who have not thought
the matter out fully.
Criticism which is deliberate, sober, and fair is always valuable and
it should be welcomed by all who desire progress. I have had at least
my full share of adverse criticism, but I can truly say that it has
not embittered me, nor left me with any harsh feeling against a living
soul. Nor do I wish to be critical of those whose conscientious
judgment, frankly expressed, differs from my own. No matter how noisy
the pessimists may be, we know that the world is getting better
steadily and rapidly, and that is a good thing to remember in our
moments of depression or humiliation.
THE BENEVOLENT TRUSTS
To return to the subject of the Benevolent Trusts, which is a name for
corporations to manage the business side of benefactions. The idea
needs, and to be successful must have, the help of men who have been
trained along practical lines. The best men of business should be
attracted by its possibilities for good. When it is eventually worked
out, as it will be in some form, and probably in a better one than we
can now forecast, how worthy it will be of the efforts of our ablest
men!
We shall have the best charities supported generously and adequately,
managed with scientific efficiency by the ablest men, who will gladly
he held strictly accountable to the donors of the money, not only for
the correct financing of the funds, but for the intelligent and
effective use of every penny. To-day the whole machinery of
benevolence is conducted upon more or less haphazard principles. Good
men and women are wearing out their lives to raise money to sustain
institutions which are conducted by more less or unskilled methods.
This is a tremendous waste of our best material.
We cannot afford to have great souls who are capable of doing the most
effective work slaving to raise the money. That should be a business
man's task, and he should be supreme in managing the machinery of the
expenses. The teachers, the workers, and the inspired leaders of the
people should be relieved of these pressing and belittling money
cares. They have more than enough to do in tilling their tremendous
and never fully occupied field, and they should be free from any care
which might in any wise divert them from that work.
When these Benevolent Trusts come into active being, such
organizations on broad lines will be sure to attract the brains of the
best men we have in our commercial affairs, as great business
opportunities attract them now. Our successful business men as a
class, and the exceptions only prove the truth of the assertion, have
a high standard of honour. I have sometimes been tempted to say that
our clergymen could gain by knowing the essentials of business life
better. The closer association with men of affairs would, I think,
benefit both classes. People who have had much to do with ministers
and those who hold confidential positions in our churches have at
times had surprising experiences in meeting what is sometimes
practised in the way of ecclesiastical business, because these good
men have had so little of business training in the work-a-day world.
The whole system of proper relations, whether it be in commerce, or in
the Church, or in the sciences, rests on honour. Able business men
seek to confine their dealings to people who tell the truth and keep
their promises; and the representatives of the Church, who are often
prone to attack business men as a type of what is selfish and mean,
have some great lessons to learn, and they will gladly learn them as
these two types of workers grow closer together.
The Benevolent Trusts, when they come, will raise these standards;
they will look the facts in the face; they will applaud and sustain
the effective workers and institutions; and they will uplift the
intelligent standard of good work in helping all the people chiefly to
help themselves. There are already signs that these combinations are
coming, and coming quickly, and in the directorates of these trusts
you will eventually find the flower of our American manhood, the men
who not only know how to make money, but who accept the great
responsibility of administering it wisely.
A few years ago, on the occasion of the decennial anniversary of the
University of Chicago, I was attending a university dinner, and having
been asked to speak I had jotted down a few notes.
When the time arrived to stand up and face these guests--men of worth
and position--my notes meant nothing to me. As I thought of the latent
power of good that rested with these rich and influential people I was
greatly affected. I threw down my notes and started to plead for my
Benevolent Trust plan.
"You men," I said, "are always looking forward to do something for
good causes. I know how very busy you are. You work in a treadmill
from which you see no escape. I can easily understand that you feel
that it is beyond your present power carefully to study the needs of
humanity, and that you wait to give until you have considered many
things and decided upon some course of action. Now, why not do with
what you can give to others as you do with what you want to keep for
yourself and your children: Put it into a Trust? You would not place a
fortune for your children in the hands of an inexperienced person, no