The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1907-03-07

family houses. The education gift
would build 10000 of such houses,
giving happy homes to 100000 people
who now merely exist in crowded
tenements.
Albany is a city of 100000 people
All of them could be comfortably put
into homes that might be built with
such sum. The total assessed real
ty valuation of Albany is $64, 900, 900,
of which more than one-half is busi-
ness property. So that the education
gift might purchase the homes of an
entire capital city. The cost of liV-
ing last year in the United States was
$105 per person, giving all the neces-
stiles of life. At this rate 304, 1852
people could be supported for a year
out of the donation. Nobody in such
cities as Newark, Washington. Mil
waukee, Detroit, or New Orleans
would have to worry about food or
clothing. The mere interest on the
sum would support perpetually the
entire population of such cities as
Ansonia, 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
sum would do wonders. Its mere
interest income, amounting to $4,329
a day, would forever feed a Fleisch-
man bread line of SG,5S0 men, giving
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, carrying more passengers in a
day than many great lines do in six
months. 1t could construct a trunk
line from New York 1890 miles west
ward to Kansas City, at the rate of
$4,000 . 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 $S2,O0O,0OO are of great
number. The question arises whether
the money might have been better ap-
piled to some of them.
Mr.. w. H. Mallock, the eminent
English antagonist of socialism, was
asked how he regarded Mr.. Rockefel-
ler's bequest.
ITO pass any competent opinion on
its effects on public welfare and hap
piness would require careful study"
he replied. Such an enormous gift
so overtops anything we have had in
England that | hardly know how to
gauge it.
I'm one sense I should say that the
individual who by extraordinary abil-
ity and talent makes a 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 necessarily be brought
up in the same line of accumulation.
They could devote their time and tai
ent, therefore, better to the question
of proper distribution.
Mr.. Carnegie's bequests to librar-
les have produced much criticism in
England because of the burdens he
imposes on the taxpayers. In this
respect the giving failed Of due appre-
citation.
Gift Should Benefit Labor, Too.
liked to see this bequest of Mr.. Rookie
feller's applied differently? | cannot
answer, as l have not examined it full
ly. To certain extent l would have
the philanthropic gifts SO made as to
benefit labor as well as education.
For example, a gift that would enable
the excavations of Herculaneum and
other buried cities to be uncovered
would afford not only labor but in
crease 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 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 a
means toward the end it desires. J.