The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-03-02

into homes that might be built with
such sum. The total assessed realty
valuation Of Albany is $4,000, 900, of
which more than one-half is business
property So that the education gift
might purchase the homes of an entire
capital city. The cost of living last year
in the United States was $105 per per-
son, giving all the necessities of life
At this rate 304,762 people could be sup
ported for a year out of the donation.
Nobody in such cities as Newark,
Washington, Milwaukee, Detroit or
New Orleans would have to worry
about food or clothing. The mere in
terest on the sum would support per-
petually the entire population of such
Kan; Braddock; Pa; Danbury. Conn. !;
Johnstown, N. Y, or New Rochelle.
Any city of $4,000 people could live on
the income of the gift.
In the matter of food alone such a
sum would do wonders. It's mere in
terest income, amounting to $4,329 a
day, would forever feed a Fleischman
bread line of $3.50 men, giving each
one loaf of bread every night. That
line would extend not merely around
Grace church, as at present, but %
miles up Broadway to Tarrytown.
Would Build Another Subway.
1t could build another subway in New
York city like the present one, the most
marvellous railway in the world, carry
ing more passengers in a day than
many great lines do in six months. 1t
York 1880 miles westward to Kansas
City, at the rate of $4,000 a mile, which
is all that roads cost under normal
conditions
The things that could be done for
the material benefit Of humanity with
the sum of $32, 100000 are of great num-
ber The question arises whether the
money might have been better applied
to some of them.
Mr.. w. H. Mallock, the eminent
English antagonist of socialism, who
is delivering a course of lectures at
Columbia university, was asked yes
terday how he regarded Mr.. Rockefel-
ler's bequest.
ITO pass any competent opinion on
it's effects on public welfare and hap
piness would require careful study" he
replied. Such an enormous gift so
overtops anything we have had in Eng
land that 1 hardly know how to gauge
it.
"In one sense I should say that the
individual who by extraordinary ability
and talent makes great fortune would
do better not to attempt giving it away
himself, but pass that duty on to his
sons. His genius has been that of
work and money making The sons
would not necessarilybe brought up in
the same line of accumulation. They
could devote their time and talent,
therefore, better to the question of pro-
per distribution.
Mr.. Carnegie's requests to libraries
have produced much critism in Eng
land because of the burdens he i'm
posed on the taxpayers. In this respect
the giving failed of due appreciation.
Gift Should Benefit Labor, Too.
you ask me how l should have liked
to see this bequest Of Mr.. Rockefeller's
applied differently? l cannot answer.
as l have not examined it fully. To a
certain extent l would have philan
thrOpic gifts so made as to benefit
labor as we'll as education. For ex-
ample, a gift that would enable the ex
cavations of Herculaneum and other
buried cities to be uncovered would
afford not only labor but increase our
sum of knowledge.
Whether such enormous donations
will affect the theory of socialism is
question yet to be answered. In one
form it certainly is a distribution of
wealth. The scale on which it is being
conducted in the United States fairly
bewilders one
Socialism views the Rockefeller be-
quest with partial approval as means
toward the end it desires. ]. G. Phelps
Stokes, one of the party leaders, said:
while l am not prepared to discuss
off-hand how 1 would dispose of so
vast a sum. l certainly would not give