FROM: AG

PtP

INTER-OFFICE CORRESPONDEN CB

TO : COMMENTS :

DATE: November 12, 1940

JlUN 3 ?%I

K 5-7-

SUBJECT: Policy 1941

This is =.argument in favor of a special

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policy in 1941 for the RF.

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After a few general remarks I shall first describe the princiak cause of the present
trend to many and short-term grants.
and defects of the present trend, and finally the new and particular reasons for a
shift I would urge in the type and duration of our grants in 1941.

Then follows a brief examination of the merits

It is a commonplace among officers that the amount of time, care, and

effort spent in preparing a docket item does   vary directly with the amount of
money involved.
it is certain that one hundred items averaging $10,090 each will consume at least
five times the energy and time in preparation that 20 items averaging $50,009 require.
A more .significant way to SHY it i3 that if the time and strength of an officer
may be regarded as a quahtib not qithout limits, doubling the number of ttems to be
presented means halving the amount of time for study, comparison, negotiation, and
preparation given to each docket item, or else it is done at the expense of time
for other visits and talks which are simply essential to an officer's work.
must also be self-evident that if an offioer is obliged to break up what should be
a ten-year project into one, two, or three-year bits, the work of both officers and
trustees is increased without proportionate advantage.

Small items may be better than large, they may also be worse; but

It

In 1933 the

pressure upon the officers to get into "the thick of thin

things" was heightened by a limitation to two years of most, if not all, of OUT
grants, and a mounting aversion to endowments of any kind.
dis of foundations is on the one hand doing small things in a big way and on the
other doing big things in a small way.
a small way - everything in small amounts and for short periods.
began to grow  big was the amount of renewals, extensions, and reviews,  i. e. the
proportion of repetitive business placed before the Trustees. GT. t d tha there were
good reasons for this increase in short term obligations, the shlxofeth o*
"squarely within program" nonetheless facilitated the creation of lots of small
projects without controlling their cmulative effect.
nobody else would take them over.
large number and the cumulative fmplications of projects mostly too short to be
terminated by a gradual and explicit taper defined well i.n advance.

present trend, somewhat less extreme than in 1936, but definite enough to have brought
on the practice of promises to review and a paragraph entitled "hplications."

          The Scylla and Charyb-

The policy of 1953 was to do everything in

Khat suad,.enly

They had to be renewed;

And the result is that we are tied down by the

This is the

cony $04

RF Policy - RBF - 2

Amonp the advantages of small, short-tzrm commitments are these: if

disappoimting they waste less money, if dubious vie are protected, being numerous
they allow prospecting in a larger vsLriety of undertdings, and in uncertain tinck
they are appropriately circumspect.  In the expanding prosperity of 1920-30 small
projects led on to greater things (thanks to funds from other donors).
the contracting universe of  1930-40 no one could assume that the Lord would pro-
vide. In 1928 we Kere incubators; in 1938 we are more cormnonly brooders. Small
short-term grants have a different effect upon reci2ients fron large, long-term
grants.  They magnify our moral obligation by repeating the process of negotiation
and award of support.  We almost convince the recipient me are going on indefinitely.
We don't give hh a schedule for looking ahead for himself or realizing that there
is going to be an end to our aid. We succeed unintentionally in emphasizing OUT
control of him by shortening the time before we'll be around again to form a critical
estimate of whether he deserves another year or two.  Furthermore, although we are
one of the few foundations large enough to do big things thoroughly, we ignore that uni-
que role and become merely the largest single distributor pf chicken feed.
into numerous ephemeral and trivial nexplorationsT1.
smll short-term Rid on research itself or recruitment to the ranks of research men,
But I will say that mediocre undertakings are hard to discontinue on the basis of
short-term appraisal.  Jerome Greene's grandmother said that the way she saved money
was by never buying anything that cost less than 75 cents.

But in

Thus we drift

I won t touch on the effect. of

     If the times were peaceful and the future predictable, my argunent would
be for fewer, larger, and longer projects, better studied, and with more time for
the offlcers to travel and find significant new developments and. trustworthy reci-
pients.

But 1941 is going to be a peculiar and unur:ial sort of gear.

It wili not

be peaceful.
certain for this country, a year in which heavier tRxation and rising costs of all
kinds are nearly sure.  While the losses in Europe are mounting and thus Tnore cer-
tain to affect us, the detailed knowledge of what they are and whet they will be
becones vaguer and less reliable as a basis for planning.
Be c2n do something else.
qccumulated.  Money appropriated now to the bePt of them could discharge  serious
moral obligations which later will be unpredictable in amount yet certain to >e
held against US.

It is a year in which the

dislocations of preparation for war are

Who plans in a hurricane?

We can deal with all these recurrent projects which have

It would be wise for the Foundation to clear off its moral obligations

as fully as possible during 1941 so that its officers'  time and the various divi-
sional budgets may in the following years be in the state of maximum elastixitry and
freedom of manoaeuvre.  I don't want two thirds of the budget Rnd half our time in
1942 and 19L3 frozen by recurrent old items however excellent they may be,  however
cogent as moral obligations.
for clearing off responsibilities for old ones so that in 1942 and 1943 our income
can be available without encumbrances.                           - not before

Our eyes but behind the curthin of our die-hard incredulity, censore8 news, snd
unimaginative traditionalism.  I'd rather see the RF' clcared by generous eisht and
ten year terminal grants of all its present moral responsibilities than drift on
through 1911 with only a small fraction of its program reflecting the anproaching
need for freedom to clear the decks and adjust to the one time in our lives when
time to study, travel, and draw on unencumbered funds will be essential - the bitter
period after the nar, the only tine when our knowledge, our methods, and our Yoney
will be desperately iqortant.

1941 is not a time for new undertakings:  it is a time

World conditions are changin

RF Policy - REG - 3

I realize that some emergencies will arise  in 1941 which will  re-

quire attention.  But while the spiritual, economic, and political convulsion
is on, the Foundation should clear its books of the present unavoidable moral
obligations by aaking long term terminating grants and
Nithout enwrllbrances or recriminations the enormous changes here and elsewhere
in the world which are certainly coming.

thus prepare to meet