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Robin Hood Reversed

Robin Hood Reversed image
Parent Issue
Day
29
Month
May
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

ROBIN HOOD REVERSED.

The sucker, we believe, is a fish which is found only in American waters, but the kind of human being who takes the sucker's name can be found anywhere. The metaphor, by the way, is piscatorially unjust. No fish is less gullible than the sucker. His characteristic act is to absorb the bait and escape the hook, whereas the human sucker makes a specialty of firmly implanting the hook in his throat. These reflections are forced upon us when we read about the generosity with which Mr. Rockefeller lavishes his wealth upon charity and education. The colleges welcome his gifts with open arms. Their professors of political economy are conservative. They teach the good old saws about the wage fund, and other phrases, the practical effect of which is to check bold and real thought about what wealth actually does and gets. If Mr. Rockefeller gives $4,465,216.38 for some university project, on condition that the remaining $5,534,728.62 shall be raised by private subscription, his influence on that institution is only less than the influence which he enjoys at Chicago. As these lines are written, a difference of opinion is being waged in some Western State university over a gift from out Standard magnate, which happened to coincide with a rise of one cent a gallon in the price of oil. Doubtless, in the end, the money will be accepted. Money is seldom refused. But is it the most valuable kind of education which the American youth receives from the spectacle of 100 percent profit on a necessity of life, made possible by such a history as that of the Standard Oil Company? Would it not be education to the country at large for some prominent university to refuse an oil-soaked donation, perhaps in the name of its department of political economy? Doubtless Mr. Baer believes that Divine Providence selected Mr. Rockefeller to earn money and generously hand it out, so that for centuries to come young students shall read on all the stationery of Chicago University that their alma mater was founded by John D. Rockefeller. We are not so sure of the divinity of this arrangement. The oil business, like the policy shop, is largely supported by the poor. Robin Hood has been leniently treated by posterity, because he is supposed to have helped the poor with his robbery of the rich. To reverse his scheme and endow rich colleges with wealth wrung penny by penny, and against the law, from the necessities of the poor, is a less picturesque kind of highway generosity.--Collier's Weekly.