Fourth R

Ask the little black pupils of 4,500 Negro schools in the South the name of the great American who lived at Springfield, Ill., and the prompt reply is Abraham Lincoln. Ask them what they learn about in school and they will name another Springfieldian, for they know not three but four Rs: reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and Rosenwald--"Marse Julius," the man who made possible their schooling. For the small blackamoors and for people of many a race, creed and color, last week was a time of mourning. Aged 69, Julius Rosenwald died at his home in Ravinia, Ill. of lingering illnesses: arteriosclerosis, heart and kidney disease.*

The year after Lincoln went to the White House, Julius Rosenwald was born. As a boy he sold newspapers, was shrewd enough to earn 25-c- a Sunday pumping the organ at the First Presbyterian Church (not at the temple attended by his parents)./- When he was 16 he began clerking for the clothing firm of Hammerslough Brothers, run by his uncles, in Manhattan. Five years after that he set up his own business on Fifth Avenue. It failed and young Rosenwald's next scene of activity was Chicago (Rosenwald & Weil). He bought out his partner in 1895, the same year he acquired partnership in a fledgling mail order business which had been one of his best customers. By 1916, Mr. Rosenwald's interest in Sears. Roebuck & Co. was worth $150,000,000. He had paid $70,000 for his half-interest.

Just as John Davison Rockefeller taught people to use kerosene instead of candles, as Henry Ford's "lizzie" supplanted the Old Grey Mare, so Julius Rosenwald's mail order house replaced in large measure the country store. The customer was always right and money was refunded with no questions asked. Up thundered sales figures: $11,000,000 in 1910, $100,000,000 in 1914, $270,000,000 in 1919. When the mail order business began ranging down its post-War decline, clever Merchant Rosenwald bolstered sales by establishing 300 chain stores throughout the U. S.

In the winter of 1921, post-War depression struck the mail order business amidships. Sears. Roebuck's gross revenue fell off a sharp $75,000,000. To save the giant mercantile organization required some more of the bold business thinking that had built it up. When it became apparent that a $16,000,000 inventory loss would have to be written off the 1921 balance sheets, Mr. Rosenwald put up $20,000,000 of his own money to see the business through. This he accomplished by purchasing 16 millions of company real estate, turning over 50,000 shares of company stock with the understanding that he might repurchase it in three years. His action was regarded as one of the brilliant mercantile moves of the decade.

Again, on the fourth day of the 1929 stockmarket crash, Merchant Rosenwald pledged his personal fortune as collateral for the margin accounts of all Sears, Roebuck employes.

Although Merchant Rosenwald had to make his money before he gave it away, in the public imagination Rosenwald the Businessman is far overshadowed by Rosenwald the Philanthropist. During the past 20 years he quietly sprinkled largesse all over the world: $6,000,000 for Jewish colonization in Soviet Russia; $1,000,000 for a Berlin children's dental clinic; $30,000 for a library in Luxor, Egypt; 25,000 for Negro Y. M. C. A.'s and Y. W. C. A.'s; $5,000,000 to the University of Chicago; $5,000,000 to a Jewish theological seminary; $5,000,000 for Chicago's new industrial museum; $3,660,000 towards Negro rural schools. Total benefactions: $60,000,000 of which the most famed single unit is the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Ten of the fund's 30 million endowment is yet unspent.

Julius Rosenwald's originality in acquiring wealth did not cease when he began disseminating it through charity. Charity, to him, was great fun. If not the innovator, he was one of the greatest practitioners of "contingent contributing." lie would give so much if others would give so much. If an institution really filled a vital need, then everyone should pitch in and help it out.

Of his own theories on public giving he wrote in the Atlantic Monthly three years ago:

"The worst hardships and dangers of the Western trail had passed in my boyhood, but there was still use, then, for the Bryan Mullanphy fund, established in 1851 for 'worthy and distressed travelers and emigrants passing through St. Louis to settle for a home in the West.' A few years later the trustees could with difficulty find anyone to whom the proceeds of the fund might be given. . . .

"The man who gave it found one of he most urgent needs of his time and filled that need precisely. He made only one mistake: he focused his gift too sharply. He forgot that time passes and nothing--not even the crying needs of an era--endures. . . .

"I am certain that those who seek by perpetuities to create for themselves a kind of immortality on earth will fail, if only because no institution and no foundation can live forever. . . . The names of Harvard, Yale, Bodley and Smithson, to be sure, are still on men's lips, but the names are now not those of men but of institutions. If any of these men strove for everlasting remembrance, they must feel kinship with Nesselrode, who lived a diplomat, but is immortal as a pudding."

Practicing what he preached, Charitarian Julius Rosenwald dedicated his Fund to "the well-being of mankind"; its money must be spent, interest and principal, within 25 years of his death.

Two springs ago a friend visited him in his Manhattan hotel room, complimented the apartment on its books, pictures, flowers, its homelikeness. Sensitive Julius Rosenwald went to the window, pulled back the curtains. "Yes," said he, "yes, but the finest thing about it is its view!"

* On Dec. 31 the Chicago Herald & Examiner, learning that Mr. Rosenwald was gravely ill, telephoned his doctor for confirmation. The physician confirmed the report, but warned that the only newspaper Mr. Rosenwald read was the Herald & Examiner, that news of his condition might hasten his death. The Herald & Examiner scooped the town that night, but omitted the item from its North Shore editions lest Mr. Rosenwald read it in Ravinia.

/- Third charter member of the Guild of Former Pipe Organ Pumpers. Pumper Rosenwald was Grand Quint of the Chicago Loft. He addressed the Loft two years ago on "My First Pair of Double-Seated Bike Pants."

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