The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-07-20
CHARITY TRUST
SHOWN as NEST
OF REACTION
Banker-F ascists Hold
Principal Jobs
(By Federated Press)


S300,000,000 of private funds are
now invested and held for charity
and education in Chicago, the class
for whom the money was given has
nothing to say about how it is to be
spent. No representatives of labor
sit on the boards that hand out the
aims, tinker with the health or shape
the character Of the beneficiaries.
AutOcracy.
The Chicago Community Trust
carries this autocracy over charity
administration a step further. 1t is
a charity of charities, soliciting con-
troll over charity funds and seeking
authority to change the object for
which they were originally given.
The giver himself is eventually dis
franchised by clause in a sug-
gested form of bequest reading
"When in the judgment of the
Chicago Community Trust the need
for this charity shall cease the
money may be devoted by the
Chicago Community Trust to any of
the purposes of said trust"
Organized in 1915 the trust now
controls over 100000 and has in
sight millions more through wills
that have not yet gone through the
probate MILL It's five directors are
an interesting group. The chairman
is Clifford W. Barnes, long associ-
ated with the committee of fifteen
and other silk stocking shoppers
Jumped by the Chicago Federation
of Labor as employer racketeering
outfits" The vice chairman is Ber-
nard A. Eckhart, whose reluctant
revelations of Liberty bond dealings
with Fred Upham, Chicago bond
peddler, for Will Hays of the G. O.
p, were the feature of the Teapot
Dome hearings in Chicago last
spring.
A third is President E. ]. Buffing-
ton of the Illinois Steel Company,
the steel trust subsidiary. Buffing-
ton is the man who tried hard, but
unsuccessfully, to make his workers
show joy and reverence for Queen
Marie of Rumania when she in
spected the plant. Charles S. Cut
ting, the fourth, is a former Judge
of the probate court, where billions
are handled annually. The fifth is
Abel Davis, a banker, who had am
billions to head the Illinois national
guard and was receiver for a time
of the American Cooperative So
city, the notorious Harrison Parker
enterprise.
Also Mr.. Dawes.
Not content with such an array
an advisory council has been set up
almost exclusively of bankers. One
looks in vain for aliberal or pro-
social spirit among them. Naturally
labor men are not wanted there in
an advisory cap acity. The advisers
include Vice President Charles G.
Dawes, the banker-fascist; Charles
H. Markham of the unfriendly Hi
nois Central; James A. Patten,
grain gambler and open-shop buc-
cancer, who was also caught with
the Sinclair Liberty bonds; and
chiefs of the First National Bank,
Illinois Merchants Trust Company,
Continental and Commercial Ma
tional Bank, State Bank of Chicago,
National Bank of the Republic,
Northern Trust Company, Harris
Trust and Savings Bank, Union
Trust Company, Chicago Trust Com
pany, Central Trust Company, Noel
State Bank and the Bank of
America.
The Chicago Community Trust is
device to perpetuate control of
charity funds in reactionary hands.
As Secretary Frank LOOMS says,
without realizing what he is saying:
"The Community Trust works in
cooperation with and has the en-
dorsement of the strongest financial
institutions in the community. Thus
it secures conservative management
of the principal of any fund and eff
fective use of the income from year
to year forever, whatever changes
in institutions and methods may
come.