The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-28
MORE ABOUT TAINTED MONEY.

from John D. Rockefeller-which. by the way. was s1oo.ooo instead of s1o.- 900. as The Advertiser printed it--has, as was predicted. brought out any num- Der of diverse opinions. One of the most pointed comes from Rev. Henry A. Simpson, of New York. who Is spoken of as "a noted orthodox min- ister." He says:
 Whatever the means by which MT. Rockefeller accumulated the s100,000. | ft Is not the duty of the board to in- quire into his business methods. nor into the business methods of any one who makes Q gift for charitable pur- poses The duty of the board is simp- | ly to accept the gift and dispose of it act ording to the purpose for which 1t was made. This is the boards duty. for the simple reason that the board Is not the recipient or beneficiary of the gift. but merely the agent to effect transfer for parties wishing to make a moral problem than an express com pany, when 1t undertakes to carry package from one address to another. | Moreover. from still another point Of view, the board has no moral question | to consider in accepting money for charitable purposes. whatever its orig | in. For the board Is only the trustee for the poor or the heather for whom the money Is intended. That the board | Is only the trustee would be upheld by l the common law In court. As trustee, | then, the board has no right at all to refuse to accept or manage money al- ready. by the act of the donor. belong | ing to the beneficiaries. The board it. | self is not beneficiary. Only one or two per cent. of the gift goes to 1t. In order to pay the expense of mainten- ance and the disposition of the money. It would be preposterous obviously. to require credentials as to the busi- ness straightness of every one wish ing to make a gift for charity. You simply can't tell how money has been earned. If you attempted to find out, you would bring to a standstfll the machinery of good things. Charities would stop. As I say, 1t is only the beneflciaries who have the right to re- fuse a gift. The trustees. in case they object to taking charge of certain gift. have only the option of resign ing their positions.
 This is certainly a sound argument. and its application is extensive. Let us admit, for the time, that a church or other religious organization ought 10 refuse any money for religious or charitable purposes if they know the money to have been acquired by dis honorable methods. but where is the line to be drawn? Can the church or the minitser be sure that all the money dropped in the contribution box Is hon. est money? Can the minister know that all the money which goes to pay his salary was obtained by methods that he would approve? When a new church is to be built can the trustee or do they-examine each subscription and reject all about the source of which they have doubts?
 Then, as to this particular bequest of MT. Rockefeller: will those who re- fused it undertake to maintain that none of his vast wealth has been ob- tained honorably? That would be go- ing beyond reasonable bounds, yet these ministers must act on that pre- sumption if they refuse to take any money from him. But the principle must be carried much further, if we are to be strictly fair and just. Unless the late Jay Gould was fearfully slan- dered a great deal of his fortune was accumulated by Rockefeller methods, yet his daughter. Miss Helen, has giv- en millions of dollars to religious and charitable purposes, and we have not heard that any of 1t failed to do good because of the fathers business meth ods. Then, again, what rich man has been more severely denounced for his financial acts than Andrew Carnegie? Yet millions of dollars of his tainted money" have gone to schools andNlibra- ries and churches without protest, and l 4v.a. .I~ jects for which the money was given. In the language of The Hartford Times:
 If the plan of examining and certi- flying the quality of all the cash that l is offered fer public uses Is to be adopted, 1t may involve some awkward consequences. Suppose 1t should be found out that good deal of the money heretofore expended for foreign missions had been accumulated by the givers in un-Christian ways--would it not be the duty of the American board to secure good. clean money and re- turn 1t to the givers, in order that 1t may not be said that tainted money Thas been used for the propagation of the Gospel? But what can be done if the giver of such tainted money is dead? Shall the cash be returned to his heirs? There is within our per Sonal knowledge the case of rich Now | England deacon, now deceased, who gave S400,000 during his life to the | American board, but who was very Rockefellerish in his business methods, and not above cheating a fellow-citizen outrageously in q cow-trade. What ought to be done by the American board in a case like that? Obviously this question bristles with difficulties. l Why not come down to hard facts and common sense about such matters? Admitting that a portion of the Rocke- feller wealth was acquired discredita- bly, or even dishonorably, so much the more reason why some of 1t should be put to better use. As foul water is pu- rifled by running over gravel and through sand. so will this tainted money be purified and sweetened by turning 1t to good use. Every dollar of 1t that can thus be diverted from it's soiled stream into pure and clean channels Is a good act. Food will not taste less sweet to the hungry or clothes be less grateful to the naked because the food and the clothes may have been acquired by the arts of the black-leg. If more tainted money" could be purified by going into and through clean hands much misery and want and human suffering might be banished from among us.
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