ABSTRACT
Large foundations are practically unknown on the Continent, where the rich are in the habit of holding on tight to what they have and the State discourages private foundations by denying them tax exemption and regulating them strictly. (In the spring of 1955, the European Cultural Foundation was formed in Geneva, with an initial capital of $125,000, which it will try to increase to $10,000,000; it has been described by the Times as “the only private international foundation in Europe comparable in conception though not yet in financial strength to the great American private foundations.”) There are a few fairly large foundations—such as the Nuffield Trust—in England, where there is a tradition of private philanthropy. But it is only in the United States that wealth has been amassed on a large enough scale to make its disposal a problem. Some American millionaires have found other solutions—in yachts and fancy living, like Diamond Jim Brady and Bet-a-Million Gates; in art-collecting, like Frick and Morgan; or in just keeping the stuff, like Hetty Green, Russell Sage, and other classic misers—but by and large they have been sensitive to the fact that in this country the accumulation of vast fortunes is not considered, as it is 20in older and more cynical societies with generally accepted class distinctions, the private affair of the accumulator. The democratic tradition puts pressure on the rich to “do good” with their wealth; even Russell Sage’s tightly grasped millions finally ended up, through his widow, as the foundation of a foundation. Of the thirteen major family-interest groups which President Roosevelt’s Temporary National Economic Committee in 1940 identified in the ownership of the 200 largest non-financial corporations, all but one had their own foundations. The exception was the Pitcairn family. The other twelve were: Ford, Rockefeller, DuPont, Mellon, McCormick, Hartford, Harkness, Duke, Pew, Clark, Reynolds, and Kress.
