New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-28
Limitations for Foundations.

It is easy to see why the Walsh contin-
GENT in the Federal Commission on Indus
trial Relations, holding the Rockefellers
personally responsible for peonage IN the
Colorado mines and the Ludlow murders
should object to the Rockefeller Founda-
tons industrial Investigations. To them
there appeared little difference between
the publicity output of Ivy Lee and Mac
kenzie King; little to choose between or
ganizing the mine operators against the
unions and counselling them not to accept
President Wilson's mediation plan, and the
poisoning of publicity and pervertng OF
education through the power OF the
foundations agencies, in the interest OF
Rockefeller industries.
Having had evidence of the extent OF the
Rockefeller resources to influence the pup
lie favorably in the strike controversy,
they were unwilling to believe, in view OF
certain material which came to them, that
the huge funds of the Rockefeller founda-
ton were not also made to play their part
IN awakening a llltuuly iSNi'HS
the Standard Oil group.
There is no kindly spirit for propagan'
dists abroad in the land now, whether they
labor for alien nations or corporations.
There is distrust of the disinterestedness
of college teaching when many institutions
are benefciaries of financial magnateS and
when one professor is shown to have been
in the pay of a railroad for publicity
work and two other professors are dis
charged for no known reason save that
they have been pronouncedly antl-cor-
poration in their publicly expressed views
There will always be many persons IN
this city who believe, despite denials, that
the Bureau of Municipal Research shaped
its policy to meet Rockefeller demands in
order to get Rockefeller contributions, as
the Walsh group insists. All this feeling
is concentrated in the case of the Rookie
Teller Foundation because of the labor
record and personality of the Rockefellers.
Where the ordinary person thinks of the
scientific achievements of FleXner, Carrel
Noguchi, given to the world through this
foundation, the labor unionist and the
social worker think of Bayonne's wages
and the concentration camps Of Colorado
and the bloodshed of Ludlow.
So long as there exist huge funds like
these foundations. the income of which ex
ceeds the reasonable possibility of expen-
diture in their normal work, privately man
aged. and these are directed by self-per
petuating trustees, such suspicion and dis
trust are bound to continue. Whether they
could ever be the menace that some of the
extremists see in them is more or less
beside the point. The trouble is that
however honestly and sincerely they are
managed. they will never be able to do
their greatest good while they are so
much close corporations as they now are,
for they will lack certain credence and
support from a considerable portion of
the public.
No suggestion from the Walsh commit
tee to the Rockefeller interests would be
likely to be received with good grace Yet
there is meat in the one that there be
Federal incorporation of big foundations,
with explicit definition Of their powers
that there be rigid supervision of their
work and expenditures and prohibition Of
new lines Of work except on authorization
Of Congress. Under such conditions they
would escape the suspicion which now is
only too likely to follow them.