AMERICAN LETTER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 81, 7 April 1910, Page 4

AMERICAN LETTER.

ON RECENT EVENTS. MR. ROCKEFELLER'S GIFTS. From Our Own Correspondent.) .SAX FRANCISCO, 10th March. Like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller luis fouml tin* tank of giving away bin millions too much for him. He is exhausted by the effoit of getting rid of £27,000,000, and now ho is seeking to form a company to conduct his spending on up-to-uate lines. He has asked the United States Government to grant him a Federal dim tor for his charity organisation, which is to b» tailed the Rockefeller Foundation. Some protest has been raised against this mcasuio on the ground that it savours of private legislation. Dut the Foundation will certainly be established ono way or another. John D. Rockefeller, junr., tho millionaire's son, has announced that he intends to make tho management of these charities his life-work. Some of the biggest of the benefactions of John D. the older, up to the present, have been :—: — £ Chicago Education Board 11,000,000 University of Chicago ... 5,tX)0,000 Rush Medical College ... 1,200,000 Churches 1,040,000 Missions 1,060,000 Other interesting gifts are : — Over £200,000 to Y.M.C.A. 's, £200.000 to fight the hookworm 7 disease, £70,0U0 to the Anti-Saloon League. TRUST MAGNATES. At last there is found a way of dealing with the trust evil that looks likoy to be more effective than all the antitrust laws that were over thought of. Indictments have been laid against the magnates of the meat trust. The charge is conspiracy to raise prices. If such a couspiracy is found to be actually a crime, then, even though the present indictments fail, the fenr of imprisonment will be ever presont with the operators of the hugo combines. Fines are no deterrent. Mr Rockefeller continued playing golf with steady nerve when he neard of the £6,000,000 fine imposed on the Standard Oil Company under tho anti-trust law ; but he probably would have felt different with a prospect — even a distant one — of a prison cell. The indictments against tho Beef Trust have been laid in Jersey City. They aro founded on a State law against conspiracy, which follows the English common law. The very highest men in the trust have been charged, including two of tho Armours, three of the Swifts, and two of the Morrises. REFORMING NEW YORK. Tho honesty of Judge Gaynor, tho new Mayor "of New York, is Having that city something over £200,000— some say as ninth as £400,000— a year. He hn» simply "canned" all tho useless officials who wero put in oflice by the Taminnny organisation. The Tammany leaders have received a considerable, shork ; they did not expect this kind of treatment from the man they nominated ; but they cannot charge Gat nor with infidelity, since he informed thorn at the outset that he would administer tho city on perfectly honest line.' without any favours to men of his party. Whei 1 ho took office ho found that the widely-published stories of criminal wasto of public funds were by no means exaggertcd. For instance, ho found a man with less education than a primer pupil holding office us an inspector of accounts. In overy department there were men who received their salaries without doing any real work. Judge Gaynor ordered their dismissal.