And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth.
—Revelation 11:10
4345 Two Philanthropists
John D. Rockefeller gave away $750 million in his lifetime. This was the greatest lifetime bequest of any person.
Andrew Carnegie made benefactions totalling $350 million during the last 18 years of his life. Another record.
4346 The Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation, a tax-exempt philanthropic organization has assets of $3.4 billion in 1971.
Since it was formed in 1936 by Edsel and Henry Ford, it has given away almost 5 billion dollars. In 1976, it budgeted $150 million to 600 organizations and over 1000 individuals.
The Foundation made the largest bequest in the history of philanthropy in 1955, when $500 million was announced to 4,157 institution.
4347 U. S. Foreign Aid
Since World War II ended in 1945,
—The U.S. through mid-1976, had paid out about 221 billion dollars in foreign aid. That amounts to more than $1,000 for every person in this country.
—Of this total, 145 billion dollars, or 66 percent, went for economic assistance and 76 billion for military aid.
—Among the 140 nations that have received American help are some of the world’s richest as well as the poorest, Communist as well as capitalist, and hostile as well as friendly nations.
—Most of the aid—146 billion dollars—has been given in the form of out right grants. Of the 75 billion in loans, the U. S. has got back barely 37 billion in principal and interest. And even when a loan is repaid, the U.S. loses money because it charges foreign borrowers lower interest rates than it pays in borrowing money to lend.
The House Appropriations Committee estimates that American taxpayers have shelled out about 126 billion dollars to pay interest incurred to borrow the money that has been given.
—US News and World Report
4348 He Enjoyed Giving Away Money
George Peabody was a wealthy merchant of the last century. He was most generous in his gifts to worthy causes, one of which was the building of model tenement houses in London at a cost of over two million and it is estimated that he gave away over nine million in his lifetime.
Once at a dinner party in Baltimore George Peabody and John Hopkins were present. Someone inquired: “Which did you enjoy most, Mr. Peabody, making your money or giving it away?” “Well,” replied Peabody slowly, as John Hopkins listened, “I enjoy making money. I think it is a great pleasure to make money.
“And when the idea was first suggested me that I give money away, it did not please me at all. In fact, it distressed me. But I thought the matter over and concluded that I would try it on a small scale. So I built the first of the model tenement houses in London. It was a hard pull.
“But after it was done I went around among the poor people living in the rooms so clean and comfortable, and I had quite a new feeling. l enjoyed it very much. So I gave some more and the feeling increased. And now I can truly say that, much as I enjoyed making my money, I enjoyed giving it away a great deal better.”
4349 He Paid For Mediterranean Atlantic Canal
A 158-mile canal costing 68 million dollars in gold was built at the expense of one man.
This man of genius was Pierre-Paul de Riquet, Baron de Bonrepos (1604–1680). At the age of sixty this intrepid French engineer conceived the idea of constructing a canal from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Since the local authorities refused to share the cost of the gigantic enterprise, the sexagenarian decided to assume the staggering financial burden himself.
An average of 10,000 laborers worked on the project for fourteen years. It was completed six months after Riquet’s death. The 79-foot-wide passageway with its 8-foot depth, its 228 bridges and 114 locks, lifting the water a gradual 621½ feet to the level of the Atlantic, called forth the amazement and the admiration of all Europe. King Louis XIV referred to it as the greatest achievement of his entire seventy-two-year reign.
Known as the Canal du Midi, it is still in use. It has been of inestimable benefit to the French people since the day it was built.
—Selected
4350 He Opened A Highway
In the 1830s the west was still a wild and uncharted territory. For the most part there were no roads or even trails. For example, from Iowa City, Iowa, to Dubuque, the State Capital, a distance of one hundred miles, there was no road, not even a trail. Should you need to make that journey in those days, you would have to start straight cross-country, over rugged and untracked regions.
A farmer who had settled in Iowa City wanting to do something about this, decided to pioneer a path from his newly-chosen town to the capital. He hitched up a team of oxen to a plow and started to make a furrow across the wilderness. It took him months to do it.
But hardly had he finished when the people of that region began to travel in both directions along that furrow as their guide. As a result the ground was soon beaten down into a highway, serving travellers from Iowa City to Dubuque.
4351 Palace For King Gondefernes
There is a legend which tells of St. Thomas, the apostle of the Indies. Gondofernes, the King of the Indies, gave him a vast sum of money to build him a palace. St. Thomas gave all away in charity and for religion. Gondofernes, on his return from a long absence, was greatly enraged, and caused Thomas to be seized and cast into prison.
Meanwhile the King’s brother dies, but after four days comes back from the dead. He tells Gondofernes that he has been in paradise, and that St. Thomas built him there a beautiful palace, which he had seen. The King rushed to the prison and liberated Thomas with passionate expressions of gratitude and regret.
—Walter Baxendale
4352 Philanthropic “Common” Man
In a popular TV show of the ’50s, The Millionaire, a vigilant philanthropist would single out deserving citizens and then stun them with a big check.
Philanthropist Thomas Cannon, 53, is no multimillionaire, however. He is a black postal worker in Richmond earning $16,000 a year, who in the past five years has somehow managed to give away more than $33,000 of his own money. Most of it has gone, in $1,000 checks, to strangers whose misfortunes or good deeds he has read about.
Some of his beneficiaries: a Columbian orphan who needed heart surgery; a couple who have been foster parents to 40 children; a civic-minded, wealthy businessman who quickly returned the gift.
Why does he do it? Cannon believes that “the quest for money and acquisitions can be very self-destructive.” So he and his wife Princetta give away as much as they can, while living in a house with a leaky roof and driving a battered Chevy.
—Time
4353 Electrician Offers Service Free
After two years of retirement, Ted Rowe decided that his years of work as an electrician could mean something for someone.
Rowe tried to volunteer his services at several institutions, including hospitals and rehabilitation centers, but he was told that his help wasn’t needed.
Still determined to help someone, Rowe, 70, 6120 Colonial Avenue, says he can be reached at 253–8034. He said he would be able to do small electrical repairs for households or businesses, and all without charge.
4354 His Three Kicks
William Allen White, the Sage of Emporia, Kansas, gave to his native city a 50-acre wooded plot as a site for a park. He also agreed to pay the expense of beautifying the park for five years under the direction of the city landscape department. Today Peter Pan Park is a beautiful and much-used place of recreation. In making his gift Editor White declared:
“This is the last kick in a fistful of dollars I’m getting rid of. I have tried to teach people there are kicks in every dollar: one when you make it—and I do love to make a dollar; one when you have it—and I have the Yankee lust for saving. The third kick is when you give it away—and the biggest kick of all is this last one.”
4355 Her Diamonds In Hospital
A pretty story is told about the Princess Eugenie, sister of the King of Sweden. She sold her diamonds to raise funds in order to complete a hospital in which she was interested. When visiting the completed hospital, the princess exclaimed, “Ah, now I see my diamonds again!”
4356 Too Many Parties In Her Lifetime
Miami, Florida (AP)—A socialite bedridden with terminal emphysema wishes she hadn’t spent so much on parties so she could give more money to medical science.
Mary Jane Sertel, 74, widow of an insurance executive and founder of the Miami Social Register, said she had changed her will to give a million dollars to the University of Miami Medical School.
Mrs. Sertel made the change to endow a chair for pulmonary diseases at the school after she learned the extent of her terminal illness.
“I wish we had the first penny we ever made and hadn’t invested so much in parties and fun,” she said.
4357 Pauper’s Funeral Spurred Him
The name of Lord Shaftesbury is enshrined in the annals of those great ones who spend themselves for others, and who live lives of devotion and sacrifice. To those great ends Lord Shaftesbury, when a youth at Harrow, consecrated himself on seeing a pauper’s funeral, and the indecency and neglect with which it was conducted. There may now be seen on the wall the following inscription: “Near this spot Serve. While yet a boy in Harrow School, he saw with shame and indignation the pauper’s funeral, which helped to awaken his lifelong devotion to the service of the poor and the oppressed.”
—James Burns
4358 They Learned From People
Dr. Bernardo saw a ragged urchin on the street, talked with him about his life and learned that he had no home but slept with other urchins as ragged as himself upon the roof of a building. The doctor went with him to the sleeping place, learned the condition of those struggling waifs, and the result was the establishment of the great Bernardo Home. Looking after the one little boy was commonplace enough, but it led to one of the greatest philanthropies of the age.
Sir George Williams became interested in the young men of his store, talked with them, taught them the Bible, organized them, and the result was the Young Men’s Christian Association.
—Current Anecdotes
4359 Self-Immolation For Poor
Some months ago, at Easter, a Greek philanthropist known as “the Angel of the Slums” tried to crucify himself because he could not raise money to buy food for the poor families of Greece.
A young couple discovered an Athens businessman named Adamandios Karamourzounis hanging from a wooden cross and crowned with thorns on a mountain overlooking Athens. In hospital he told reporters that he had toured the poorest parts of Greece and found 20,000 families “who did not have even an Easter egg to celebrate our Lord’s resurrection.” He was bitterly ashamed at his failure and decided to crucify himself.
—Prairie Overcomer
4360 The Cuticura Corporation
George Robert White was a man whose God-given beliefs made him both a material and a spiritual millionaire at thirty as he built a small soap manufacturing plant in Boston into the multimillion-dollar Cuticura Corporation. He did this in spite of giving away a large part of his net profits to charity.
In 1952, Dr. Samuel M. Best said in This I Believe: “Since Mr. White’s death, I have endeavored as his successor to adhere to his code of ethics. Two dollars out of every three dollars profit earned by our corporation is shared with others in helping to make our nation a better place in which to live … for the advancement of medicine and science, for chemical research, for art and beauty.”
There is no mention of our Lord’s great commission—of the spreading of the gospel. Perhaps that is why, despite their 66–2/3 percentage of giving, there is no longer a Cuticura Corporation in existence. Today the remaining Cuticura products are manufactured and sold by the Campana Corporation of Batavia, Illinois.
The sustained faithful giving of a large percentage of income money does not of itself guarantee continued success and God’s blessing with riches. There are many businesses which were founded and built up by faithful Christians who once gave richly to God’s evangelical causes—businesses which have capitulated to the humanist causes of their next-generation leaders.
4361 Philathropy’s Christian Basis
Athens had an altar to Pity but that altar had no worshippers. A recent traveller says that there are no ruins of hospitals or asylums at Pompeii. Philanthropy was kindled by Christ.
—J. H. Bomberger
4362 Asking For His Shirttails
Whenever he was asked which of his possessions he treasured most, the late Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, a twinkle in his eye, would lead the visitor into his study and point to a beautifully-framed letter written in Spencerian script:
“In order to raise money for the church, our members are making aprons from the shirttails of famous men. We would be so pleased if you could send us one of your shirttails. Please have Mrs. Hughes mark them with your initials and also pin on them a short biography of the famous occasions in which they have been intimately associated with your life.”
4363 Epigram On Philanthropy
• Aristotle, on being censured for giving alms to a bad man, answered: “I did not give it to the man. I gave it to humanity.”
See also: Giving ; Money ; Religiosity ; II Tim. 3:5.