OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2934, 8 June 1910, Page 39

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) NEW YORK, March 24. Mr John D. Rockefeller has announced his intention of leaving a great part of his enormous fortune as a gift to the nation. He hopes to see the accomplishment of a part of his plans at least during his lifetime. This intention was first shown a little more tha.n two weeks ago, when a bill was introduced into Congress, providing for the organisation of a corporation, with headquarters at Washington, to be known as the Rockefeller Foundation. Its incorporators" are Mr Rockefeller, his son—John D. Rockefeller, jun., and his three business and legal advisors—Fred T. Gates, Starr J. Murphy, and Charles 0. Heydt. The Rockefeller Foundation is to be modelled upon the lines oi the well-known Carnegie Foundation, bu\ with a much greater scope in mind. Through it Mr Rockefeller has already announced that he will spend millions of dollars for charity, for education, and for various movements calculated to help the cause of human progress. He has already done pretty well along these lines. It is said to be the oil magnate's desire to spend the greater part of the vast fortune that he has built up while he is still alive. He is keenly anxious to observe the effects of the distribution of his wealth. The Foundation is therefore to be a sort of clearing-house for Mr Rockefeller's future philanthropies. In his endeavours to relieve himself of the cares attendant upon his gifts, he has wanted" to systematise his methods of giving. Hence this strange new corporation, which seeks the protection and the sanction of the Federal Government. Some of our publicists and editors are already looking the gift-horse in the mouth—as we sometimes put it in the United States—and say that Mr Rockefeller is doing the most adroit thing in his entire skiLful career, putting his fortune where it will remain safe and intact for long generations—that the philanthropy will become a smaller issue and the fortune a closer.corporation year by year. For reply, Mr Rockefeller calls attention to the Carnegie and Sage Foundations, each business corporations devoted solely to the distribution of great fortunes for the best good of mankind. The Sage Foundation has distributed for beneficences up to the present time 18,128,615d01, and the Carnegie _ gifts—very largely to advance libraries and educational institutions—already exceed 162,0(K),G00dol. Mr Rockefeller up to the present time has given away 119,304,000d01, and he says quite modestly that he has just begun. He has helped colleges and hospitals, and, particularly, great scientific researches as to the cause of and the cures for the diseases that ravage so many thousands of little children annually. But all of these gifts pale under those that" the Rockefeller Foundation will attempt. It is understood that 500,000,000d0l will bo placed at its disposal at the outset. Such a beneficence far exceeds any other in the history of the world.

Speaking of great American fortunes, the swiftness with which these may become visible and in the hand, is shown in the organisation of great industrial corporations—such as Standard Oil, to make the illustration pat. Mr J. P. day by all . odd® the leading American financier—has been organising a great automobile trust. Several leading concerns have been gathered for the nucleus of the trust, and; the others are expected to affiliate rapidly with it. It is understood that the new concern, which is still in the making, and is being kept fairly secret, because of legal complications, i s to be incorporated at > 80,000, OOOdol. That is tremendous capitalisation, and compares with the United States Steel Corporation—our largest industrial concern to-day. But when it is known that the American people will pay this year 400,000,000d0l for automobiles, the capitalisation of the newest trust seems modest indeed.

But what the men of business who are considering the possibilities of automobile increase have most closely in mind is the much greater utilisation of motor cars for commercial purposes than has been the case until recently. What is now especially hoped for is the construction of an automobile truck which may be operated without gasoline. The danger of fire from gasoline-operated trucks is so great that they are not allowed upon the piers of New York or for the trucking of merchandise that is very inflammable. If the automobiles that are operated by electricity could be manufactured and operated as cheaply as the gasoline motor is, then these cars would come into almost universal use. There are hints that if prolonged experiments should show that the new Edison storage battery—now being tried on street cars through Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth streets in this city—meets expectations, then this apparatus will be adapted to trucks. There etill remains a good deal of doubt as to the ability of the Edison battery to do all that is claimed for it. That doubt cannot be removed until the most severe tests, which must be continued for several months more, have been removed.

In the meantime, the number of gasolene trucks in the business streets of New York is daily increasing. Newspapers use them for their rapid deliveries to outlying parts

of the city, the street railroad companies find them remarkably successful for their emergency waggons which rush to the scene of every accident, and they are ideal for hospital ambulance service. For slowermoving loads they are found in increasing demand, but ono of the moat interesting uses to which they are being put, is for these of the New York fire department in the crowded down-town portions of the city. The extensive—and expensive—system of salt-water mains which was installed there three years ago as an emergency pro-" tection against fire, almost entirely eliminated the use of the horse-drawn steam fire-engines. The gasoline trucks for transporting ladders, hose, and men, have made fire depai-tment horses a rarity in down-town New York. The coming of the department in answer to an alarm no longer possesses the drama of the old days, when the great three-horse teams running at full speed made you think of chariot races, and sent little thrills running up and down your backbone. But it co.mes like all these new things of the twentieth century--silently, quickly, surely. With the horses eliminated, the fire stations are clean, sanitary, healthy abiding places for the men who live there, expecting hour by hour to be ordered into the face of danger.

A recent despatch from Rome carried the alarming news that Mr J. Pierpont Morgan was dead, and the stock market shuddered perceptibly. If the news had been confirmed we should undoubtedly have had to undergo another national panic, but, fortunately, it was soon given the lie by cable. Mr Morgan was in Italy undergoing an operation upon his nose —technically, the removal of a nasal polypus. The operation was performed by Professor Rampoldi, one of the foremost surgeons in Europe and a specialist on nasal surgery. It is understood that it was completely successful, and that Mr Morgan is on the road to a complete recovery. For many years the great financier's nose has been a great affliction to him. It was much swollen and discoloured, and he has been vastly sensitive about it, so much so that when newspaper photographers have essayed him with their cameras he has shown no hesitancy about breaking their boxes. He has broken no less than 20 cameras with his cane during the past few years, in every case apologising afterwards and tendering the photographer a cheque for a far greater sum than his machine- had 00®t. OkaW Bridges, of the Imperial General Staff of the British Army, has just left hei-e on his return to Australia, by way of Great Britain, and in his trunks he carries plans, documents, and schedules of study which are expected to aid the Commonwealth in the establishment of a creat army school on the lines of our West Point. The idea of such a school f or the training of Australian officers originated with Lord Kitchener, and it was that famous soldier who suggested pe-ndiiKr Colonel Bridges to this country. Lord Kitchener considers West Point the peer any similar . institution in the -world. Colonel Bridges, himself, is regarded as on© of the most cnnaMe of the younger generation of officers in British service. He spent more than a week at West Point, during which time ho had every opportunity to study the workin.es of the institution, the way discipline is maintyined. and the system of military training of the Cadets. On.° -day be was in charge of the Professor of Engineering at the Military Academy, another the teacher of drawing was his escort, the next, the Commandant of Cadets, and so en down the list until Ofon-el Bridges had seen and had explained to him nearly everything that he desired to know about West Point. He said just, before his departure that his visit had been one of the pleasantest and . most instructive of his whole career. He was unstinted in his praise of the institution, the officers who control it, and the Cadets who study within it. Speakine of students, Daniel Waldo Field, of Montello, Mass., who is 45 years old, is rated as a millionaire, is a director in. several corporations, and employs 5000 persons in his shoe factories, has entered Harvard University ps a student. He is, of course, especially interested in corporation law. It is too late in life for him to aspire to the broader culture of a full classical course, but his matriculation in a course of business law, is, in itself, a striking incident. For four long weeks the great city of Philadelphia— with a peculation of more than 2.000,000 persons—has been in the erin of. a street railroad strike. The fact that such a strike—costing the business interests of that city mow than a million dollars a day—should paralyse Philadelphia for a full month gives no satisfaction to the American who is truly interested in. the progress of his country. The thing is no more nearly settled to-dav than when it besiao on Washington's birthday—February 2?, —last.

In June the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, which controls all the electric railroads of that city—surface, elevated, and underground,—first, became involved with its 9000 employees. The men. like everyone else in the country, found that the cost of living was an increasing factor, and demanded increased wages. The corporation pleaded l inability to raise wages. Tt even cited the fact that it did not pay dividends upon its stock —which is greatly '' watered"—as one reason for refusing. The men, who were well organised into a union, struck. Once Clarence Pratt, who had once been a motorman in Detroit, was selected to lead them. Pratt made a good fight, albeit a fight accompanied by no little disorder. Still, it is probable that the railroad eompanv would have won that fight if political influences had not been brought to bear upon it. A delicate primary election was close at hand: the strikers had chosen their hour adroitly. Rather than lose a sizable proportion of 9000 votes, the political powers that be in Philadelphia took sides with the carmen. A quiet hint went to the railroad managers that on the morrow the city police, that had been guarding both cars and stations, were to be withdrawn. The company, losing its strongest ally, was forced to sign a truce.

It lost that fight of June last, with bad a:raee, and waited its time for revenge. The men, flushed with the joys of virtory, became insolent. Discipline on the Philadelphia Rapid' Transit care became a mere mockery. Conductors on the rear-ends of the cars smoked, blew the fragrance of their cheap cigars right into the faces of women passengers, and then asked them what they were going to do about it. The railroad company stood long months of this sort of thing, and in those months prepared its sinews of war. It raised a great

fighting fund within its treasury, made its barns and power-houses into the similitude of fortrcises, and then, when the word went down along the line that all was ready, discharged without excuse 173 union men, leading lights in last year's fight. That blow was struck six weeks ago. Pratt hurried back to Philadelphia from Detroit, and ordered all of the railroad's employees out on strike until the discharged men sa-ouid hi reinstated, with full pay for all time intervening. The men, remembering their previous victory, went cut with hurrahs. When the company attempted to operate its cars with non-union men, who were being housed in the dirli.rent barns, the strikers and their friends stoned the cars, set tire to them, even used small charges of dynamite. Three or four innocent persons were killed, and a great number injured. It was found necessary to call cut the Pennsylvania State Constabulary and use bullet and shot in the streets of Philadelphia before order was restored. In the meantime the company stood pat! It struggled manfully to operate at least a portion of its cars, but for many days thousands and thousands of Philac'.elphians were put to a vast deal of inconvenience because of a fight in which they could net possibly have any direct interest. For a time other unions in Philadelphia struck "in sympathy." But the "sympathetic strike" was a lamentable failure. There was no election in sight—this time the railroad chose the moment —and the political powers that be with a something that approached sagacity chose February and March as good time to seek various winter resorts in the south. At present the strike is all but won by the railroad company, but it is a grave question whether the victorias gladiator has not received a fatal wound—already they are talking of putting the road into receivership because of the enormous drains that the long fight has made upon its treasury. 'JTolks who are not concerned in the fight directly are using it as an illustration of the necessity for some such legislation toward compulsory arbitration as prevails in New Zealand, for instance. " But," says one of our editorial writers, .sadly, "that is hardly more than a visionary hope, after all. New Zealand is so far ahead of us in her political economics that wo cannot catch up to her in such antistrike legislation in less than half a century." William J. Gaynor has been Mayor of New York for about three months at the time of the writing of this letter. It is a fair time to summon up his accomplishments, for he went into office as a reform magistrate. How successful he has been may be roughly judged from the remark common upon our streets: "I did not vote for Gaynor. I will never vote for him; but hanged if I don't like the way he does things." The Mayor uses his own experience and personal observation and lifelong study of the city. For instance, take the way in which he handles the innumerable delegation of "prominent citizens" who come to see him on one pretext or the other. Ono of these delegations came to tell him where to run the next new underground railway that New York is preparing to build. After the prominent citizens had elaborated their arguments, he asked each his occupation. It turned out that the delegation was composed of real estate men. In working to save operating cost of the municipal ferries, he took the Pennsylvania railroad ferry as a model, and found that it gave better service than the city, with fewer men working more hours on less pay. The Mayor has endeavoured to save money for the city in other ways, and has succeeded remarkably well. He has ended the old system of acquiring real estate for public purposes by leisurely boards of condemnation, and saved the city 700,000d0l in three months thereby..-Salary rolls have already been reduced on the annual basis of 300.000d01, and it is expected that this figure will be increased to the somewhat astonishing. total of 1,000,000d0l within another three months. Do not wonder, then, that you hear Judge Gaynor's name mentioned at every corner. He is a Presidential possibility, and often spoken of as such, despite the fact that Roosevelt has already reached Cairo on his return to the United States from his African hunting trip. Plans are already on foot for a great reception to him when he steps foot in New York in June. The reception movement is popularly known as " Back from Elba," and that phrase has an almost sinister sound around certain quarters of the Republican pantv. It falls upon no interested ears in the White House. The Republican leaders —at present badly demoralised by various damaging investigations of their handiworks—look upon Roosevelt as the mariners of old looked upon the Flying Dutchman. There is trouble ahead en the horizon, particularly that quarter nearest Egypt.