 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope a television journal of the important issues of the hour a Presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner watch company maker of Lawn Jean the world's most honored watch and Wittner distinguished companion to the world honored Lawn Jean Good evening. This is David Ross. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Larry Lassur of the CBS television news staff and Lewis Banks associate editor of Time magazine Our distinguished guest for this evening is Dean Rusk president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former assistant secretary of state The Rockefeller Foundation the General Education Board are of course outstanding among the tax-exempt educational foundations of this country Well, they're now under attack by a special committee of the house in charge with financing among other things projects Which are incompatible with our Constitution? For our guest tonight the former assistant secretary of state is president of both foundations, so we'd like to ask Dean Rusk First to tell us something about the original concepts under which these foundations were Originated mr. Lassur when mr. Rockefeller senior was a small boy He began the habit of giving and as his income increased his giving increased There came a time when he decided that His giving had grown too large for management by a single individual and he began to establish Large endowed institutions one of the first was the Rockefeller Institute for medical research, which is still in existence over on the East River and doing a fine job in medical research He then created the general education board for the promotion of education in the United States Without regard to race or sex or religion In then in 1913 he established the Rockefeller Foundation with a very broad purpose of promoting the well-being of mankind throughout the world Well, Dean, do you think that in the past half century the Successive presidents and their paid staffs have carried out the concepts of the founders Well, I think there's no doubt Larry that The boards have carried out the wishes of the founder, of course the charter purposes are very broad It's hard to think of many things that might not contribute to the well-being of mankind in the judgment of group of trustees If you if your question means have they always made exactly the right decisions That is a matter to be determined from the record people's judgment will differ We think the record is a good one. Well, mr. Ross one of the charges that was made was that the Control of foundation has gotten away from the trustees into a kind of career civil service Do you think that this control has passed from the trustees and then that decisions are being made by staff without reference to these Trustees of the foundation that may vary from organization to organization in our case. It has not The trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation make all grants more than ten thousand dollars in amount And they appropriate the funds and establish the policies for grants of less than ten thousand dollars These proposals are brought to them in trustee meetings at which there is fine attendance And are presented by the offices with all of the background and the arguments for and against and the decisions are made by the boards the problem of serving on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation is one of Difficult because it involves time and interest and attention to duty. Mr. Ross, I guess one of the chief criticism of the foundations is that their tax exempt now Are they always tax exempt under an act of Congress when they started? Organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation have been tax exempt from the beginning It's been one of the long established traditions of our Anglo-American jurisprudence to allow tax exemption to charitable organizations of this type The founding fathers brought that tradition with them when this country was established and the state Legislatures and the Congress have held to it right along Do you think this type of foundation is now kind of a permanent part of our system? Or do you think eventually you run out of things to do because of competition from agencies like the National Science Foundation? United Nations and all those competitive agencies. Will you have anything left to do? I think competition is not quite the right word Mr. Banks because there is plenty to do in the field of Foundation and charitable activity. It is quite true that There was a time when there were a few large foundations with a pretty wide open field without too many working in it but and in these later days with Governments and international organizations and large numbers of foundations and corporations coming into the field It is true that you have to be somewhat more aware of what other people are doing if you are going to get the most for your own money And I think that's the that's the more important point rather than that of competition I think charity is here to stay. How much favoritism is shown among foundations is are there gifts to friends or to special alma matas or to Is there any political Discrimination practice? I would be surprised to find that there was any political discrimination There are some foundations that are created to support one or two or three specific institutions And that's the whole purpose for which they were established as far as our two foundations are concerned I suppose that we have made grants to over a thousand separate institutions in the United States scattered throughout Almost all of the 48 states and I think the national foundations could not probably be charged with favoritism Larry mentioned the Congressional hearings. I wonder if you think that there's sufficient freedom from political pressure or Corporation pressure business pressure for foundations to make decisions and to go along on lines of bold research Which are necessary if they're to pay their way I think that freedom is one of the things that foundations will fight for and one of the Issues involved in the course of investigation over the past two years is whether the foundations are to retain the freedom which they have always had We believe that they will be allowed that freedom because the Necessity for it has been demonstrated over and over again, and we have no doubt that the Congress is going to continue its policy in that regard well, mr.. Mr.. Russ the Congress in these Reese committee public hearings has charged the foundations with everything from aiding and betting communism in the schools with violation of the antitrust laws and you intend to defend yourself on all these points or to Sit out the ones in which you feel you do best at well We filed a reply with the Reese committee recently in which we tried to deal with as many of these charges as we could Actually, we did not speak specifically to every one of the many that were brought up because we just could not believe that the committee itself Took these charges seriously and we made the point in our reply that if we fail to speak to any point Which the committee might take seriously we didn't concede the point We would like an opportunity to come back to it later But we we tried to cover most of those in our reply They complained you back dr. Kinsey to Yes, we put some money into dr. Kinsey through the National Research Council's Committee on research and problems of sex. That's a program that has been going for Or about 30 years now more than 30 years And in its overall reach it has had very important results to medicine and to the well-being of mankind It's that committee for example, which has led to the discoveries of sex hormones and many other Factors which have made a great difference to the health and stability of our people. Mr. Rose, what about the charge of the committee that the tax exemption of the foundations isn't fair to the government because if they Weren't tax exempt 90% of the money they take in would go to the government which the government could spend as it pleases Well, I think that Has several elements in the first place Government has systematically pursued the policy of encouraging philanthropy and encouraging charity And it would not be fair to suppose that government is being cheated in some way if people do what government has encouraged them to do Also, I think a dollar amounts have been greatly exaggerated here It isn't true to say that 90% of the foundation capital in the country Really belongs to the government because it might otherwise have been taxed And when the Rockefeller Foundation was established the tax fact was negligible if we were a business corporation today paying taxes as any other Corporation our taxes would be about 5% of our income not 90% In any event we believe that when the Congress announces a policy of encouraging charity and philanthropy and people respond to it That is a perfectly proper action on their part What about these churches though, sir that some of the new free tax-free foundations are really Dodging organizations it is true. I think that the number of foundations has been increasing and not all of them Perhaps are quite as good as some of the big foundations Well, there may be some Activities around the fringe of the foundation feel that would cause real concern I think the Commission of Internal Revenue testified before the Rease committee or perhaps it was his assistant who's so testified that in the two-year period 1951-53 tax exemption was withdrawn from something like 55 organizations who did not qualify under the tax exemption legislation As they as interpreted by the by the Internal Revenue Service Certainly the established foundations have an interest in seeing to it that There is no racketeering in this field This is an important social organization that ought to be protected against abuse and the policies of the Congress ought to be Protected against abuse that is one of the reasons why we were very anxious To see that Foundations make public reporting of their on their activities. Well, how much do you think every foundation should report to the public? you think these reports should be elaborated and a Clear view given of just what this money is donated to well We are inclined to believe that mr. Alfred Sloan made a wise remark when he said that foundations ought to act with glass Pockets the public ought to know what they do with their money how they invest it how they spend it in order that the public can be Assured that the tax exemption privilege is not being abused We have undertaken from the earliest days of the Rockville Foundation and Journal Education Board to report fully to the Public on what we do We think it would be burdensome if every foundation were required to report as elaborately as we do But within the limits of the size and activities of a foundation We feel quite strongly that they should make their activities public and we supported We were inclined to support legislation introduced by two members of the counts committee which would require that of tax exempt organizations Well, mr. Do you think that the foundation should be responsible for the reports or for the people to whom they Give these grants or should this be entirely out of their hands supposing someone turns up who is the views are incompatible with the government well, we do not believe that Those who grant money to scholars and scientists should exercise an intellectual surveillance over the work of those scientists and scholars in the first place no scientist or scholar of character would receive any money under those conditions and Freedom is the essence of scholarship and when you make a grant to a scientist or a scholar What you what you want from him is his uninhibited thinking on the problem, which he is attacked Now if you were going to prescribe your answer for him in advance There's no particular reason to make him a grant. Let me make the study. I see well Thank you very much Dean Ruskin great privilege to have you here tonight. Thank you The opinions expressed on the lawn jean chronoscope were those of the speakers the editorial board for this edition of the lawn jean chronoscope was Larry Lecer and Lewis Banks our distinguished guest was Dean Rusk president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former assistant secretary of state What does the name lawn jean mean to you? 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