http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/h...158750.stm

Am I my brother's keeper?
-Alistair Cooke

Some years ago, I had a letter from the editor of an English weekly news magazine simply saying that he listened to these talks and from time to time I had given the idea for a story that his paper should cover.
This letter crossed with one from me to the editor of the same weekly congratulating him on the paper's coverage of the United States, as the best informed and most grown-up, shall we say, of any European publication I knew.

I added that, from time to time, they had printed a piece which had given me the idea for a talk. A very decent and civilised exchange.

The other morning, the first news I came on was some suspected shady relation of my own bank with Enron.

And - having read yet again that this administration will deny its contribution to the United Nations' population control effort so long as any American money goes to countries that approve or advise abortion - it was in a despairing mood that I sifted around for a topic, something to say that would fairly remind people that America is more than what some think of as the bully and, at the moment, a sink of business corruption.

I had just come on an old editorial in a highly respected paper here commenting on Mr Ted Turner's one billion dollar gift to the United Nations, remarking that this was an admirable gesture but it was, after all, an act of private charity and did not excuse American policy on population control - an example of thinking gone askew, if ever I saw one.

Having found no good thing to say, I switched on to watch one of the several Senate and House committee meetings that are investigating the various outbreaks of what Mr Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has identified as an infectious disease - he didn't say whether it was also contagious - it is named Greed.

Greed has become a favourite journalistic bash word in the past month or two, and the interest in it went, the other morning, into a serious question put to a witness before a Congressional committee.

"In the motion picture Wall Street" (I believe it was) - "in that motion picture, d'you remember a character saying "Greed is good?" The witness did. "Would you, then, agree with that characterisation?"

There was a rustle of laughter and helpful cough or two - allowing the witness to smile and not answer this fatuous question.

At another hearing, being conducted by a chairman with an extraordinary (for a Senator), I should say a unique gift for simple English - he faced the CEO (chief executive officer) of a giant corporation that was about to collapse in great debt and much shame. And this is the way the dialogue went:

"Is it true that when you resigned from the company you took with you a bonus or package of earnings of some 28 million dollars?"

"That is correct."

"28 million dollars is a lot of money, is it not?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"Did it ever occur to you to use some of it to compensate the several thousand employees of your company who are now out of work and with their savings gone?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"I'd done my part for the company - I didn't have any further obligation."

End of chilling dialogue.

At that moment, there came to my mind a scene and a sentence spoken by the most famous of Scottish immigrants to the United States.

He was a ragged, poor, small boy born in a stone cottage. Later he was the neat, cherubic little monopolist of the so-called United States Steel Corporation.

And on the first day of the twentieth century he performed two public gestures. He sold the corporation for 250 million dollars (today, that would be about 10 billions) and he relinquished his empire with the flourish of a magazine article that ended: "Farewell, the age of Iron - all hail King Steel!"

Now, it has to be said that the tiny, dapper 65 year-old Andrew Carnegie had acquired his empire by means both ingenious and brutal - with the sweat of many thousands of immigrants, often underpaid, and also with the conniving of other robber barons, most notably the tougher still Henry Frick, king of coke (what comes out of heating coal, not what comes out of the coca leaves).

At sixty-five, Carnegie retired.

If you write that today about most tycoons or businessmen who are sent off with a golden parachute, many of us assume they will retire to a lavish country house and play golf for the rest of their days. It is the exception to the rule.

Little Mr Carnegie was asked what he was going to do now? He was not at a loss for words.

He spent the last few years of his working life working on a philosophy of wealth. He called it "The Gospel of Wealth". He published it and among the eminent men it impressed, foremost was the ageing god of the British liberals, Mr Gladstone.

In an interview Carnegie said "the problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth".

Asked more pointedly what he was going to do with his vast wealth, he said: "Give it away", because, he said firmly: "The kept dollar is a stinking fish... the man who dies rich dies thus disgraced".

These are grand words. And you can imagine, very soon after he spoke them, there was no shortage of people who felt urgently in need of his philanthropy.

The first humble petitioner was a Scottish Presbyterian church. It was desperately in need of a pipe organ. He bought them one and the Scottish newspapers hailed "our wee Andy Carnegie" as a godsend to mankind.

Other papers around the world picked up the story of the curious gift, and until the day he died, he never ceased to get requests for pipe organs.

In all, he provided seven thousand pipe organs for churches and chapels from John O'Groats to Cape Town. It became a sideline to his main effort.

As a small boy, he had been amazed and delighted that he, a poor unlettered immigrant had a right to a card entitling him to borrow books from a free library in Pittsburgh.

He never forgot it, and presented over three thousand public libraries, first in America, then Britain, most of Europe, on into Africa, and the last one in Fiji.

His will disclosed that he was worth 400 million dollars.

Three hundred and fifty millions went to public benefactions. Thirty millions for well remembered tenants, crofters and servants and old friends (Britain's prime minister - another poor boy born in a stone cottage - was surprised and delighted to hear that he would have ten thousand dollars a year for life.

One of the most thoughtful things that Carnegie did was to set up pensions for widows of former Presidents of the United States. Congress had never thought of it - but Carnegie's gesture shamed Congress into catching up by passing a law.

For his wife and daughter, Carnegie left a trust fund which would (and did) keep them in comfort but only through their lifetime. He loathed family trusts as much as Jefferson did, and wrote in his will: "I would as soon leave my son a curse as the Almighty Dollar".

Jefferson put it a simpler way: "In this new republic, every man will make his own way".

I quote the story of Andrew Carnegie because of the picturesque range of his endowments. There were many more in the age of what Teddy Roosevelt called "malefactors of great wealth" - who also did great good with it.

Now I started this talk remember with the coincidence of my picking sometimes the same theme to talk about as that English magazine.

This week this talk was well under way when my subscribed copy of the same paper arrive at my door. And what do you know - the first name I ran into was that of Carnegie and his famous sentence "The man who dies rich dies disgraced".

There followed a piece of great eloquence on just what I had in mind. The author's pen name is Lexington, and he does a regular American commentary in the Economist.

He writes "Relying on philanthropy is a pretty roundabout way of providing social goods". But then he goes on to say in effect that when philanthropy is so widespread, so staggering in its scale, so imaginative in its object, then in this country it manages to match all but the nation-wide efforts of government.

"Think", says the writer, "think of great universities - Stanford and Chicago founded by private wealth; the California Institute of Technology.


Do not forget that in the 1990s, the decade of greed, Bill Gates' endowment amounted to 24 billions. One retired business man, Gordon Moore, is devoting just under six billion dollars to work on national health and the environment.

It is, says Lexington, because of the responsibility many rich men feel to the society that bred them that "America leads the word in medical research."

Incidentally, recent research study reveals an interesting and, I should say, little known social fact that the richest Americans give the highest percentage of their incomes to charity - which, of course, is as it should be.

Down the scale, however, middle-class Republicans give next best - lower middle-class people next - and down at the bottom are leftists and liberals who, of course, believe on principle that the welfare of the needy and the sick and old and disabled is an obligation of Big Daddy in Washington.

On the contrary, a majority of Americans, rich and poor, aim at the actual requirement of the Mormons - to tithe - to set aside every year ten per cent of their income for charity.

In this anxious time, it is heartening to some of us to know that for most Americans the answer to the self-questioning "Am I my brother's keeper?" is - "You bet".

Ugh, too long to ready on a Friday mornin'


I'll read it later!

This isn't an article, it's the whole damn Paper! LOL Please warn people in your title thats it's longer than the elastic around Anna Nicole Smith's panties!

billysparxxx said:

billysparxxx said:

Y do long articles scare people? Would u like fast-food news?

Christ, if its 2 long, move on. Enough childish snickering about how long it is. U learned 2 read, it's not that hard 2 take some time out of ur life 2 read once in a while.

:LAWD... Knowledge-ophobia.

Nep2nes said:[quote]

billysparxxx said:

This isn't news, it's an op-ed piece. As an op-ed piece it's kinda interesting. Don't know that Carnegie is the typical tycoon though.

Nep2nes said:

Ooooh, she took the bait!!


#1 Long articles don't scare people. Long articles that don't make sense and which no one cares about do.

#2 It's bad enough bitch and moan about everything, you think people here are going to read this? Sorry baby, not gonna happen. You're Nep2nes for chirst sake.

#3 After that crazy MrBlue thread(that got blocked by the way) we need you to take a rest for awhile or you can delete this account and start another one with a different name and come out fresh, but this time make sure you count. Make a difference will ya.


#4 This is getting as long as this thread, so I'll stop now.

OOH TRY THIS ONE!

http://www.prince.org/msg...&tid=24140

This pro-American Brit almost had me fooled until:
"Down the scale, however, middle-class Republicans give next best - lower middle-class people next - and down at the bottom are leftists and liberals who, of course, believe on principle that the welfare of the needy and the sick and old and disabled is an obligation of Big Daddy in Washington."

Who's to say if Turner, Gates, and Carnegie, etc aren't liberals or leftists? Is it just assumed?
Hey, Nep...try to keep your pro-capitalist propaganda back in the church email where you got it-or do you regularly read the BBC news?

beautiful article and most of it is right on point, however, the facts about who gives most are not correct. For dollar amounts, sure, the rich give the most because they have the most. But if you break it down into percentages of how much a person actually has, be it time, money, etc. -- there are a great many who would be considered poor that give a far greater percentage of themselves than those who have a lot to give. They do so because they feel it's the right thing to do. And what a blessed thing it is when someone like that becomes rich and still remembers what it was like to have little, and gives most of the riches away. There are some beautiful people out there giving so much every day and they will never say a word about it. And one of them is the subject of 90% of your discussions on here. For that, nothin but love 2 u.. nothin but love 2 u all who know what it means 2 give.

billysparxxx said:

Hmm, fuck you.

mrchristian said:

They might b liberals or leftists, but 4 the sake of what we're talking about they would b grouped with the millionaires who give most (the part u conveniently left out) THEY would have been mentioned right b4 the middle class Republican bit.

P.S. I dont go 2 church, smarty pants. Yes, I do read bbc or cnn sometimes.

Besides, whats wrong with going 2 church, mrchristian? Do u have a prejudice against people who go 2 church?!

billysparxxx said:

If u hate me so much,y do u want 2 marry me, according 2 ur profile?

Update the profile, u backstabbing fat bastard.

I just skimmed this article but I agree with Alistair Cooke, bootlegging is just wrong!

billysparxxx said:

A 5 lol rating.

Nep2nes said:

this coming from the same person who complained that I didnt highlight the prince reference in a very good article on artist rights issues...



HYPOCRITE!!!

Nep2nes said:

I have nothing against going to church-- and never said you did. I don't appreciate the inflammatory emails many churches circulate--and have seen them, as my cousin is a devout born again Christian. The emails serve to sway public opinion, while i believe religious organizations should be concerned with spirituality and not current affairs and political lobbyists.

I originally thought the article was about American philanthropy, when it became clear, it was thinly veiled right wing propaganda--like a few of your previous posts Like "Planned Parenthood offers free abortions to WTC victims families", for instance, your article here misrepresents the facts.
If, as you say, those multimillionaires were liberals(billionaire, Ted Turner and his wife Jane Fonda, are well known for being left of center), then the article is incorrect by saying liberals give the least, especially when your article cites Turner as a major benefactor.

Not only that, the article implies all liberals/leftists--which mind you are very different--are poor, lazy freeloaders "who by principle" expect "Big Daddy" to pay for the poor. What principle is that? Is that written some where? I consider myself a liberal on many issues, is there a book i should be reading that says 'Big Daddy' Washington has to take care of the poor.

In addition to that, how does the author of this article know how much each person gives or doesn't give? Are they privy to some information the rest of us don't have?
Churches, for instance, are considered charities. If i went to church and gave them part of my income to a church, do they know what political leanings i have?
Many people give money anonymously to charities. Are anonymous donors not counted in their numbers? Or is it only people who want recognition for their good deeds?

Hey, you're free to read this crap, and free to post it--but don't expect everyone to 'freely' read it and not respond to its biased and misrepresented remarks as such.