The Appeals that Come

Random Reminiscences of Men and Events, by John D. Rockefeller is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Chapter VII : THE APPEALS THAT COME

Chapter VII. THE APPEALS THAT COME

The reading, assorting, and investigating of the hundreds of letters of appeal which are received daily at my office are attended to by a department organized for this purpose. The task is not so difficult as at first it might seem. The letters are, to be sure, of great variety, from all sorts of people in every condition of life, and indeed, from all parts of the world. Four-fifths of these letters are, however, requests for money for personal use, with no other title to consideration than that the writer would be gratified to have it.

There remain numbers of requests which all must recognize as worthy of notice. These may be divided, roughly, as follows:

The claims of local charities. The town or city in which one lives has a definite appeal to all its citizens, and all good neighbours will wish to coöperate with friends and fellow townsmen. But these local charities, hospitals, kindergartens, and the like, ought not to make appeal outside the local communities which they serve. The burden should be carried by the people who are on the spot and who are, or should be, most familiar with local needs.

Then come the national and international claims. These properly appeal especially to men of large means throughout the country, whose wealth admits of their doing something more than assist in caring for the local charities. There are many great national and international philanthropic and Christian organizations that cover the whole field of world-wide charity; and, while people of reputed wealth all receive appeals from individual workers throughout the world for personal assistance, the prudent and thoughtful giver will, more and more, choose these great and responsible organizations as the medium for his gifts and the distribution of his funds to distant fields. This has been my custom, and the experience of every day serves only to confirm its wisdom.

The great value of dealing with an organization which knows all the facts, and can best decide just where the help can be applied to the best advantage, has impressed itself upon me through the results of long years of experience. For example, one is asked to give in a certain field of missionary work a sum, for a definite purpose—let us say a hospital. To comply with this request will take, say, $10,000. It seems wise and natural to give this amount. The missionary who wants this money is working under the direction of a strong and capable religious denomination.

Suppose the request is referred to the manager of the board of this denomination, and it transpires that there are many good reasons why a new hospital is not badly needed at this point, and by a little good management the need of this missionary can be met by another hospital in its neighbourhood; whereas another missionary in another place has no such possibility for any hospital facilities whatever. There is no question that the money should be spent in the place last named. These conditions the managers of all the mission stations know, although perhaps the one who is giving the money never heard of them, and in my judgment he is wise in not acting until he has consulted these men of larger information.

It is interesting to follow the mental processes that some excellent souls go through to cloud their consciences when they consider what their duty actually is. For instance, one man says: "I do not believe in giving money to street beggars." I agree with him, I do not believe in the practice either; but that is not a reason why one should be exempt from doing something to help the situation represented by the street beggar. Because one does not yield to the importunities of such people is exactly the reason one should join and uphold the charity organization societies of one's own locality, which deal justly and humanely with this class, separating the worthy from the unworthy.

Another says: "I don't give to such and such a board, because I have read that of the money given only half or less actually gets to the person needing help." This is often not a true statement of fact, as proved again and again, and even if it were true in part it does not relieve the possible giver from the duty of helping to make the organization more efficient. By no possible chance is it a valid excuse for closing up one's pocketbook and dismissing the whole subject from one's mind.

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This book is part of the public domain. John D. Rockefeller. (2005). Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17090/17090-h/17090-h.htm

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