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HOLLIS Number : 008623295 Previous Record SEARCH: FULL CATALOG Browse an Alphabetical List: Browse for: Author (last name first) Browse Clear ...... Keywords from: Search for: Keywords anywhere Search Clear 222222 3RQS4QS39B7SXUCY32F75U85G7VGNVPJH9RMJ3E9KJU3RJI7FN-01748?func=full-se12/6/200 Alfred T. White Page 1 of 3 Alfred T. White Alfred Tredway White (1846-1921), housing reformer and philanthropist, was known as "the great heart and mastermind of Brooklyn's better self." Forty years a deacon and twenty years a trustee of the First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn, White's reforming work in housing Dictionary of grew directly from his church's social service project and Unitarian & was deeply informed by his sense of religious duty and Universalist compassion. In the course of an address he once asked his Biography audience how men and women could understand the love of God "when they see only the greed of men." Search the Dictionary White was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Search Alexander Moss White, a wealthy importer, and Elizabeth Hart Tredway. He earned a Civil Engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New Alphabetical List York, in 1865, then returned to Brooklyn and worked in his family's Manhattan importing firm, of which he was later a partner. A-F G-N 0-Z Also in 1865 young people in Brooklyn's First Unitarian Church founded a Main Page settlement school. Two years later White, a lifelong member of the church, began About the Project teaching in the settlement school. In 1869 his minister Alfred P. Putnam asked him to superintend the church's settlement work. He did SO for the remainder of his life. Editors Almost immediately, through house calls to the homes of settlement children, Contact Us White became aware of the terrible living conditions of the urban poor. Shocked to find that the death rate in tenement districts exceeded the general rate of population Notes for growth, he worked to stop these needless deaths with better housing. "Well it is to Contributors build hospitals for the cure of disease," he said, "but better to build homes which Information Form will prevent it." Contributors In May, 1878, White married Annie Jean Lyman, a granddaughter of Seth Low, also a teacher in the settlement school, whose family was active in the First Universalist Register Church. They had two daughters who, like their parents, taught in the settlement Obituaries school. Unitarian Universalist Association Before inaugurating the housing reform movement with innovative, affordable Unitarian Universalist housing for the working poor, White went to England to investigate the housing- Women's Heritage reform projects of Sydney H. Waterlow and others. Having learned from their Society examples and with financial help from his family, he built homes and apartments General Assembly of in Brooklyn for over a thousand families. In 1877 he completed the Home Unitarian and Free Buildings on the corner of Hicks and Baltic Streets. These twin, six-story, fire- Christian Churches (UK) proof brick buildings, with their sunlit rooms, private toilets, and balconies, were "the most advanced tenement houses in the world." Eager that other builders Notable American should follow his lead, White made certain his buildings proved that good housing Unitarians rented to those of limited means could be profitable. In 1878 and 1879 near his Note: Major first buildings White constructed the Tower Buildings with approximately 170 apartments. In 1890, closer to the waterfront, he completed the nine Riverside Contributor to Buildings, his greatest achievement. Far ahead of its time, the project had its own Emerson Hall park, playground, bathhouse and music pavilion. None of his buildings occupied more than 52 percent of its lot. White's projects, Jacob Riis insisted, were "like a http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/alfredwhite.html 9/26/2005 Alfred T. White Page 2 of 3 big village of contented people, who live in peace with one another because they have elbowroom." White's buildings and the publicity he gave them in his writings and lectures helped pave the way for enactment of New York State's 1895 tenement legislation, requiring that a new tenement occupy no more than 65 percent of its lot. By 1900 White was a leading member of the New York State Tenement House Commission. In 1876, while completing his first tenement houses for immigrant families, White moved the First Church's settlement school into its own building, the Willow Place Chapel. There the school started a kindergarten and, with the help of Pratt Institute, became a leader in preschool education. In 1906 classes and settlement clubs grew when a second building, Columbia House, was added. An early member of Brooklyn's Children Aid Society, White built for that organization the Sea-Side Home on Coney Island in 1876, the first facility in the country where poor children could receive medical care and nutritious food in a vacation atmosphere. Credited with cutting Brooklyn's infant mortality rate by half, White was also a founder of the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In 1878 he became the co-founder of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities and was either its president or secretary for thirty years. White was SO involved in settlement and charity work that he returned to Brooklyn from summer vacations in New England every third week. In 1893, while commissioner of public works in Brooklyn, White built the Wallabout Market which lasted until the nearby Navy Yard expanded during World War II. To bring flowers and woodlands to city dwellers, he made the Brooklyn Botanic Garden a reality in 1910 and until his death helped it through every financial crisis it faced. White's concern for education and training reached out beyond Brooklyn. He was a major supporter of Hampton Institute, where Booker T. Washington was a student, and of the Tuskegee Institute which Washington built. Tuskegee Institute "would not have been possible," Washington said, "had it not been for the encouragement and inspiration I received from Mr. White and his family." In 1880 Francis Greenwood Peabody, a Unitarian minister and Harvard teacher, came to Brooklyn to see White's innovative housing. They were friends for 40 years. White endowed a chair to ensure that the teaching of social ethics at Harvard, which Peabody had begun, would continue. Designed to teach economists their moral duty and philosophers economic reality, this course was duplicated in other colleges, bringing White's ideas for reform to generations of students. In 1890 Harvard University awarded White an honorary doctorate. During and after World War I White made generous anonymous gifts to desperately needy Unitarian churches in Transylvania. He was later given the Belgian Order of the Cross for sending money to ravished towns in Belgium and working with Herbert Hoover's Commission for Relief in that country. White was a charter member of Survey Associates, an original trustee of the Russell Sage Foundation, and on the first executive committee of the American National Red Cross. While skating across Forest Lake, White, an active outdoor man, fell through thin ice and drowned near Ramapo Hills, New York. Calling White the "great parishioner" of Brooklyn's First Unitarian Church, William Howard Taft lamented http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/alfredwhite.html 9/26/2005 Alfred T. White Page 3 of 3 his loss, saying, "I don't know any other one in all that six millions of New York City who would leave such a void as he does." Material on White and his buildings can be found in the First Unitarian Church Collection, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, New York, and in other papers there. His own writings include Improved Dwellings for the Laboring Classes (1879); "Better Homes for Workingmen" prepared for the Twelfth National Conference of Charities, held at Washington, D.C., June 1885; and Sun-Lighted Tenements: Thirty-five Years' Experience as an Owner (1912). For writings on White by his contemporaries, see Memorial Meeting: Alfred T. White, 1846-1921 (Brooklyn Academy of Music, April 3, 1921); In Memorium, Alfred T. White (Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record, July 1921); Robert W. de Forest "Alfred T. White," Survey (February 5, 1921); Francis Greenwood Peabody, Reminiscences of Present-Day Saints (1927); and Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890). Modern sources include American National Biography, S.V. "White, Alfred Tredway"; Olive Hoogenboom and Ari Hoogenboom, "Alfred T. White: Settlement Worker and Housing Reformer," Hayes Historical Journal: A Journal of the Gilded Age 9 (Fall 1989); Olive Hoogenboom, The First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn: One Hundred Fifty Years (1987); and Joseph B. Milgram, Alfred Tredway White (1977). Obituaries are in the New York Times and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 31, 1921. Article by Olive Hoogenboom Main Page About the Project Contact Us All material copyright Unitarian Universalist Historical Society (UUHS) 1999- 2004 http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/alfredwhite.html 9/26/2005 Present-Day Saints "Alfred Tredway White of the teaching which, with such imperfect equip- was thus secured, with space not only for lecture- ment and slight encouragement, I had been trying rooms but for a special library and for a 'Social to give. Alfred had often expressed his sympathy Museum' a collection of designs, charts, and with my undertaking, and remarked one day that illustrations of social work which it had been my his own way in social service might have been less dream to provide. 'I believe," he wrote in his letter hard to find if he had been given earlier guidance. of gift, 'that the interest in the study of the social One morning, at his home, as we sat by the fire after questions will broaden if the facilities for such studies breakfast before departing to our different duties, be increased, and I should be glad to aid in making he inquired in a casual manner what would seem to such provision at Harvard as may perpetuate, me the best way to help young men like himself expand, and dignify the course already established. to care for the social problems which made the sub- This contribution is to be entered for the pres- jects of my lectures. It had been necessary, he said, ent simply as from a contributor to the Study of for him to cross the ocean to learn the science of the Ethics of the Social Questions, and my name is housing ; might not other young men be taught while not to be published in connection with it without yet in college how to use their time and means effec- my consent hereafter.' tively for the public good? President Eliot's reply to this characteristic letter It happened that at the moment the Department contains the following paragraph 'Perhaps you do of Philosophy at Harvard was pledged to the plan of not fully understand the happiness you are prepar- a special building, and had received only two thirds ing for him [Professor Peabody]. When a man has of the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars neces- through long years built up a body of university in- sary for the purpose. I replied, therefore, that I struction, invented its methods, interested the stu- thought the teaching of social ethics would be most dents in it, and accumulated with difficulty an in- assured of its future if a permanent place could be complete special library, and all the time has had secured for it in Emerson Hall and a few days later very little assistance and no mechanical and clerical Alfred White astonished the department by sub- aids, he dreads to grow old, lest his work should scribing the necessary fifty thousand dollars, with not be continued and developed by competent suc- the condition that pro-rata space should be assigned cessors; lest in short it prove to be personal and to instruction in social ethics. As a consequence, temporary instead of institutional and permanent. the greater part of the second floor of Emerson Hall What you are proposing to do - as I understand it 146 147 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White will make Professor Peabody's work on the ethical possible were, as has been indicated, entered as dealing with the grave social and industrial evils anonymous, and it was not until a new professor which beset our American communities permanent took command of the department that the source at Harvard University.' of this stream of generosity was discovered to be, Alfred's appetite for giving being thus stimulated, not a graduate of Harvard, but an unsuspected, and he proceeded, without suggestion or knowledge of to most Harvard men an unknown, benefactor. His mine - indeed, during my absence on a sabbatical motive is sufficiently shown in a letter to President half-year - to fortify the work with an endowment Lowell in 1917 'While I sympathize with the desire of one hundred thousand dollars, followed by various to provide instruction especially designed for Divin- gifts for furnishings, for the library, and for scholar- ity School students, I also keep in mind the interests ships and finally, at his death, by a bequest of one of that large body of undergraduates who are likely hundred thousand dollars. His total gifts thus to become men of affairs, and who should realize reached at least three hundred thousand dollars; the fundamentally ethical nature of many of our and the instruction which for years had been only social problems.' that of an individual, and had been driven from one Nor must it be inferred that the gifts thus lecture-room to another without assurance of per- described were of money alone. An even more sus- manence, became established as a distinct depart- taining contribution was the complete understand- ment and recognized unit in the University.) ing and sympathy with which Alfred White watched The appointment, in 1920, of the distinguished the experimental years of this new type of study. teacher and physician, Dr. Richard C. Cabot, as my The somewhat slender support secured within the successor, gave to social ethics a new importance College Staff was more than compensated for by the in the college curriculum, and under the direction approval of a man of that world which social ethics of his fertile genius there were serving in the depart- was to interpret and serve. It has seldom happened ment in 1926 a staff of two professors, eight instruc- that two men of such different traditions have found tors and other officers, offering more than twenty themselves thinking and planning with such uncon- courses of instruction, with three hundred and sixty strained identity of hope and faith and after years of registered students, and a special library of more silence I find myself asking, at almost every point of than six thousand volumes for their use. For more personal or national decision, how Alfred's mind would than ten years the gifts which have made this growth have dealt with the case and have shown the way. 148 149 7.9-08 (1846- Birther 1921) CHAPTER VII X ALFRED TREDWAY WHITE A SECOND academic venture which had both the joy and the risks of novelty was a more personal enterprise, and must always be associated with the name of Alfred Tredway White. My affectionate intimacy with him - a closer and more confidential friendship than often occurs between grown men - was a late arrival in my experience, but soon became the most sustaining and reassuring guide of my thought and work. We were of about the same age, and were concerned with the same problems of social amelioration and reform ; but had never met each other until we were over thirty years of age, and then by what seemed an accident of professional life. Our paths of early education lay far apart. Alfred White had been trained to be an engineer, and had received his degree, at the age of nineteen, from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. The demands of his family's business, however, soon made it necessary for him to attach himself to his father and uncle, and later, with his brother, to continue the title of a firm which has maintained an honorable place in New York for affy your nearly a century. I, on the other hand, having been forced to abandon a parish ministry and to enter the Ayes 7. White I34 Prime 65 see CED'S On Alfred Tredway White academic life, had in large degree lost contact with men in business affairs. In this withdrawal from preaching to teaching, it had occurred to me, however, to undertake, at first with a small group of divinity students, and in 1882 with a large section of undergraduates, some examination of the ethical problems and needs which were confronting and dis- turbing the modern world. It was a rash venture, and was observed by some of my colleagues with scepticism, or even with friendly derision. Professor Tucker, later the beloved President of Dartmouth College, had, one year earlier, and in the quiet pre- cincts of Andover Seminary, offered to his students a similar course of study, concerned with the ap- plication of Christian motives to philanthropic work; but this was a distinctly professional un- dertaking, designed to promote among young min- isters a clearer understanding of the social prob- lems they were soon to meet. Its most notable result was the establishment of 'Andover House' in Boston, which still perpetuates as 'South End House' the influence of Dr. Tucker on his pupil, Robert Woods. The notion that such subjects might be appropriate, *not merely as instruments of pro- fessional efficiency, but for the training of young men in college, as a legitimate part of a liberal education, preparing them for the world in which they were to live, was SO novel that one of the most respected of Harvard professors frankly con- I35 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White fessed that he did not see how such studies could was described as 'The Ethics of the Social Ques- be 'seriously pursued.' tions,' and finally the impulsive genius of William There were certainly some considerations which James suggested, 'Why not call it "Social Ethics"?' WJ seemed to encourage this distrust. Academic ad- and that title was soon accepted, not only by ministrators are likely to dread innovations as Harvard University, but by similar courses and disturbing the balance of studies: and here was a departments in many American colleges and uni- plan which had no precedent in any country, and versities, quite without knowledge of the fact that was involved in many risks both from bad economics the name had been reached after much tentative and from loose sentimentalism. There was also fumbling and as a slowly realized survival of the serious lack of scholastic material. The literature fittest. of social agitation and reform, which is now SO Thus the academic foundling, without legitimate abundant, was practically non-existent forty years descent from any recognized department of study, ago. What is described in college as 'required read- wandered from room to room, repelled by economics, ing' had to be derived either from incidental articles tolerated by philosophy, and not quite certain itself or from annual reports of institutions, or from the to what family it belonged. Alfred White, observing propagandist writings of precipitate reformers. Pro- this homelessness, said one day that what was needed fessors of economics were inclined to oppose what in the University was a long building with two seemed an invasion of their field, and radical critics wings, housing in one the instruction in economics were disappointed by a guarded or academic treat- and in the another that in philosophy, and between ment. A jocular cynic in the Harvard faculty the two a central dome assigned to Social Ethics, described the new course as one on 'Drainage and which might be entered from either end, by an econo- Divorce'; and a compositor at the University Press mist who wanted to learn of duty, or by a philos- unconsciously reached the climax of criticism by opher who wanted to learn of economic laws. It sending to the office a galley-proof of the next year's must be added, however, that when this Cinderella offering which announced that my instruction was was provided with a substantial dowry in her own to be changed from a 'half Curse' to a 'whole Curse.' right and was settled in a fine home, the attitude Even the title descriptive of such studies was for of her relations became that of competition for years undetermined. At first, with some exaggera- intimacy rather than that of condescension or in- tion, it was classified as 'Philosophy 5'; later it difference, and that another department candidly 136 I37 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White proposed adopting social ethics under its family in social ethics have given direction or momentum name, in spite of the dubious pedigree-but with to his useful life. the fortune. It was in the course of this academic teaching, Inadequate and provisional as such pioneer work which might seem to have been remote from Wall became, it offered an inviting challenge to a young Street, that lives SO divergent in their interests as teacher whose chief equipment was the valor of igno- Alfred White's and mine at last happily met. In rance. To set one's hand to a brand new undertaking lecturing on the principles of poor-relief, I had been in university life, and one which the conditions of led to report the plans, then just beginning to take the world made timely, if not imperative, was a ven- shape in various countries, for the provision of ture worth the risk of much academic indifference improved dwellings for working-people, and to call and much struggling with inadequate material; attention to the consistency of such schemes with and while many youths got little from their researches economic stability or, as the maxim of the new but an easy 'C,' here and there, I like to believe, a science called it, philanthropy and five per cent. life was steadied or a career determined. The most The Peabody Dwellings had already been established reassuring counsel I can recollect was that of a in London, and in 1883 were housing not less than veteran in the faculty to whom I confessed my in- fourteen thousand persons, with SO prudent a scheme sufficient equipment, and who said 'You must of cumulative income that, when I was inspecting remember, my young friend, the Oriental proverb, their admirable premises, the superintendent jest- "Among the blind a one-eyed man is king." ingly remarked that within a time quite within com- Throughout the arduous years of consciously experi- putation the entire population of the metropolis mental effort to direct these groups of young men - might be his tenants. Indeed, the chief obstacle some of them passionately interested, some mildly met at this time by the Peabody scheme, as later by tolerant, and some passively resistant- it was a the Sage Foundation's Garden City, was the occupa- solace to reflect that, dimly as I could see the way of tion of these attractive lodgings by tenants quite social sanity and peace, most of those before me were above the wage-earning group, who found economy almost totally blind; and the chief source of profes- consistent with reasonable comfort. In London, sional satisfaction in old age has been to learn, now also, Sir Sydney Waterlow had established his and then, from an administrator of business or a Improved Dwellings Company as early as 1863, promoter of sane reform, that his youthful researches with domestic conveniences provided for each family I38 I39 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White at a rental of about two shillings a week for each same time earning an annual income of six per cent room, and average net earnings of six per cent a on the investment. It was an unprecedented venture year. in this country, and opened the way to the many The first, and for many years the best, American and more ambitious schemes of 'Tenementology' illustration of this new science, combining wise which, with varying degrees of success, have been philanthropy and sound business, had been given undertaken in many American cities. in 1876 in Brooklyn, New York, through the private Such was the enterprise which demanded personal initiative of Alfred White.1 The English examples observation if it were to be the subject of academic had attracted his attention when he was but twenty- lectures, and I therefore made a pilgrimage to Brook- nine years old, and, with the prudence of a man lyn, and for the first time met the founder of these of affairs, he crossed the ocean, examined the system dwellings, then about thirty-five years old. It was and budget of the Waterlow Buildings and other on my part a case of love at first sight, and on his similar ventures, and, returning to Brooklyn, set part the beginning of forty years of devoted friend- himself to devise a similar plan for its rapidly grow- ship. We were, by inheritance and conviction, of the ing and seriously congested population. He enlisted same religious faith and communion, and there were his family in the investment, and proceeded to erect few incidents in my own religious life SO appealing in the thickly settled district near the docks, first the and tranquillizing as the family worship shared in Tower Buildings, and later the Riverside Buildings, his home before the busy day's work began. He was which when completed contained five hundred and blessed with a most lovely and devoted wife, of the forty-seven lodgings, besides thirty small houses, same rational faith and the same complete dedication providing in all about two thousand tenants with to generous thoughts and deeds, and his home life every convenience of domestic seclusion, sanitary has been to many a guest a lesson in the simplicity protection, fireproof construction, playgrounds for which is in Christ. Indeed, it was more than once children, and a rebate of one month's rental for a matter of playful discussion among friends whether prompt payment throughout the year, while at the Mr. or Mrs. White was the more perfect in char- acter - a debate which never reached a conclusive 1 The story is told in detail in two pamphlets of Alfred White's: Improved Dwellings for the Laboring Classes, Putnam, 1879 (with decision. illustrations) : and Better Homes for Workingmen. Twelfth Nat. Conf. of Charities, 1885. See also, De Forest and Veiller, The Tene- He was himself SO unassuming and unimpressive, ment House Problem, Macmillan, 1903, I, 97, 333, 364 II, 94, 95. with such quietness of demeanor, that I did not 140 141 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White for years realize his vigor of thought or strength of where the lovely Japanese section is a memorial of will. At our first meeting we walked together through his munificence. He was one of the original trustees his buildings, and I observed with surprise that of the Sage Foundation, and a member of the first scarcely any occupant whose home we inspected executive committee of the American Red Cross, as showed any sign of recognizing the landlord, who organized for the World War; he was decorated by was at the same time the patron saint of the com- the King of Serbia in recognition of his gifts to that munity. No taint of patronage or charity had been country and received from the King of Belgium the felt; the administration had become SO automatic Order of the Cross. The Polytechnic Institute at and business-like, and the occupant SO personally Troy, Smith College, the District Nursing Associa- concerned, through an expected dividend, for the tion of Brooklyn, Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, maintenance of cleanliness and order, that the merits and many other institutions, were reenforced by his of the buildings were proudly exhibited to the visit- gifts. From 1893 to 1895 he served as Commissioner ing strangers as the occupant's possession. Philan- of Public Works for Brooklyn, incurring the bitter thropy had been completely submerged in efficiency ; hostility of certain contractors by his resolute the owner was disguised as a guest. defiance of their schemes; but on his withdrawal From this point of contact, and through many receiving an emblazoned testimonial from the very experiences of companionship, both in his home and men who had opposed him, commending his integ- mine, of excursions in summer and conversations rity and foresight. In recognition of his judicious in winter, I came by degrees to know something of philanthropy, Harvard University, in 1890, conferred other doings of this unassuming and chivalric friend, on him the honorary degree of Master of Arts, ac- some of which may be briefly recapitulated. In 1878, companying it with words SO sonorous- for degrees with his cousin Seth Low and other young citizens were still given in Latin - that a translation would of Brooklyn, he had founded the Bureau of Charities, be an act of impiety Alfredum Tredway White : - and was its president for thirty years. To this charge Virum recte divitem esse scientem, tectorum ad usum were soon added official relations with almost every operariorum designatorem callidum, dominum bene- beneficent project of his city, its Children's Aid ficum.' These and many other forms of public serv- Society, its Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to ice and private beneficence made him universally re- Children, its care of the blind; and, with peculiar garded as the first citizen of Brooklyn and his death, affection, its establishment of a botanical garden, in 1921, was the occasion of a memorial meeting at 142 143 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White the Academy of Music, where rich and poor, black found peculiar happiness, and in which his wife had and white, Catholics and Protestants, with beautiful shared with all the sympathy of her beautiful soul. unanimity of affection, testified to a sense of bereave- When, for example, at the beginning of the World ment which few private citizens have ever inspired. War, the towns of Belgium had been devastated, and The circumstances of his death increased this before any organization of relief had been proposed sense of calamity. Nothing had given him SO much in this country, Cardinal Mercier's representative refreshment, after a week in Wall Street, as a day received each month a substantial sum, transmitted among the solitudes of Nature, where he might through a Belgian priest in Brooklyn, from givers lift up his eyes to the hills for help. With this desire who described themselves as 'friends.' The Cardinal for release, he had set out on a Saturday in January took from his own study table a precious crucifix for a tramp among the mountains of the Ramapo and ordered it transmitted to these anonymous Range, west of the Hudson River, and was skating friends, who had anticipated the general sense of alone on one of the numerous lakes when he broke sympathy and compassion which this country soon through the ice and was drowned. The disaster was expressed. On arriving in America Cardinal Mercier a startling shock to the whole community but as learned for the first time the names of these friends, one reflects more calmly it may be felt that sudden and forthwith invited Mr. and Mrs. White to a pri- death, coming to a man of seventy-five years, in the vate audience, and gave his gracious blessing to these fulness of athletic vigor, and with an unbroken American Unitarians. When, again, a messenger record of integrity and beneficence, cannot be reached this country bringing the sad news of des- regarded as deplorable. He died without anticipa- perate need among the Unitarian Churches in Tran- tion or prolonged suffering, in the midst of the wild sylvania under Rumanian rule, he was led to inquire nature where his physical renewal had always been the source of a series of generous gifts which had been sought and found, and mourned by a whole city and anonymously sent to these stricken congregations by grateful friends in many lands. and discovered that they proceeded from one family These public acts of citizenship and benevolence in Brooklyn, where the need had been recognized are, however, not the most convincing evidence of and met before it had been generally appreciated Alfred White's character. By degrees, and often by or relieved. accident, I became aware of a long series of private Of these unprompted benefactions, one of the most and often anonymous benefactions, in which he had surprising was his reenforcement and endowment 144 145 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White of the teaching which, with such imperfect equip- was thus secured, with space not only for lecture- ment and slight encouragement, I had been trying rooms but for a special library and for a 'Social to give. Alfred had often expressed his sympathy Museum' - a collection of designs, charts, and with my undertaking, and remarked one day that illustrations of social work which it had been my his own way in social service might have been less dream to provide. 'I believe, he wrote in his letter hard to find if he had been given earlier guidance. of gift, that the interest in the study of the social One morning, at his home, as we sat by the fire after questions will broaden if the facilities for such studies breakfast before departing to our different duties, be increased, and I should be glad to aid in making he inquired in a casual manner what would seem to such provision at Harvard as may perpetuate, me the best way to help young men like himself expand, and dignify the course already established. to care for the social problems which made the sub- This contribution is to be entered for the pres- jects of my lectures. It had been necessary, he said, ent simply as from a contributor to the Study of for him to cross the ocean to learn the science of the Ethics of the Social Questions, and my name is housing might not other young men be taught while not to be published in connection with it without yet in college how to use their time and means effec- my consent hereafter.' tively for the public good President Eliot's reply to this characteristic letter Eliat It happened that at the moment the Department contains the following paragraph Perhaps you do of Philosophy at Harvard was pledged to the plan of not fully understand the happiness you are prepar- a special building, and had received only two thirds ing for him [Professor Peabody]. When a man has of the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars neces- through long years built up a body of university in- sary for the purpose. I replied, therefore, that I struction, invented its methods, interested the stu- 5621 thought the teaching of social ethics would be most dents in it, and accumulated with difficulty an in- assured of its future if a permanent place could be complete special library, and all the time has had secured for it in Emerson Hall and a few days later very little assistance and no mechanical and clerical Alfred White astonished the department by sub- aids, he dreads to grow old, lest his work should scribing the necessary fifty thousand dollars, with not be continued and developed by competent suc- the condition that pro-rata space should be assigned cessors lest in short it prove to be personal and to instruction in social ethics. As a consequence, temporary instead of institutional and permanent. the greater part of the second floor of Emerson Hall What you are proposing to do - as I understand it 146 147 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White - will make Professor Peabody's work on the ethical possible were, as has been indicated, entered as dealing with the grave social and industrial evils anonymous, and it was not until a new professor which beset our American communities permanent took command of the department that the source at Harvard University, of this stream of generosity was discovered to be, Alfred's appetite for giving being thus stimulated, not graduate of Harvard, but an unsuspected, and he proceeded, without suggestion or knowledge of to most Harvard men an unknown, benefactor. His mine - indeed, during my absence on a sabbatical motive is sufficiently shown in a letter to President half-year - to fortify the work with an endowment Lowell in 1917 'While I sympathize with the desire of one hundred thousand dollars, followed by various to provide instruction especially designed for Divin- gifts for furnishings, for the library, and for scholar- ity School students, I also keep in mind the interests ships ; and finally, at his death, by a bequest of one of that large body of undergraduates who are likely hundred thousand dollars. His total gifts thus to become men of affairs, and who should realize reached at least three hundred thousand dollars the fundamentally ethical nature of many of our and the instruction which for years had been only social problems.' that of an individual, and had been driven from one Nor must it be inferred that the gifts thus lecture-room to another without assurance of per- described were of money alone. An even more sus- manence, became established as a distinct depart- taining contribution was the complete understand- ment and recognized unit in the University. ing and sympathy with which Alfred White watched The appointment, in 1920, of the distinguished the experimental years of this new type of study. teacher and physician, Dr. Richard C. Cabot, as my The somewhat slender support secured within the successor, gave to social ethics a new importance College Staff was more than compensated for by the in the college curriculum, and under the direction approval of a man of that world which social ethics of his fertile genius there were serving in the depart- was to interpret and serve. It has seldom happened ment in 1926 a staff of two professors, eight instruc- that two men of such different traditions have found tors and other officers, offering more than twenty themselves thinking and planning with such uncon- courses of instruction, with three hundred and sixty strained identity of hope and faith and after years of registered students, and a special library of more silence I find myself asking, at almost every point of than six thousand volumes for their use. For more personal or national decision, how Alfred's mind would than ten years the gifts which have made this growth have dealt with the case and have shown the way. 148 149 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White These reminiscences of a beloved friend tempt than the schemes of politicians or the judgments one to some reflections on the uses of wealth, and of less competent men. The same discretion is the place of rich men under the conditions of the likely to be applied to giving which has been used modern world. No thoughtful person can disguise in getting, and the world is better, not only for from himself the fact that the so-called capitalistic the money received, but for the sagacity with which system which fortifies private ownership is in an it is distributed. In other words, the system of unstable condition and as yet on trial. Agitators private ownership, instead of being, as it is often and revolutionists affirm that it degrades the pos- supposed to be, easy to administer, is a stern sessors and wrongs the dispossessed ; and there are test of character. It calls for conscience as well instances enough of the misuse or waste of surplus as for capacity. Cupidity is often an evidence of capital to encourage the advocates of confiscation stupidity. Ownership involves obligation. Service or of communal control. The trouble with the rich is the only way to freedom. A rich man may be worth often seems to be, not that they have money, but having. if he use his peculiar facilities for benefiting that they do not know what to do with it. They society. The capitalist may be the most economical have learned to get, but they have not learned to use. agent which the community can employ. The system The development of the prehensile grasp has involved of private capital which may be SO easily misused an atrophy of the open palm. The only use of money offers the best of opportunities for magnanimity which has become congenial is to make more. Their and wisdom; but if, on the other hand, self-aggran- wealth has become what Ruskin called their 'ill-th'; dizement and vulgar ostentation shall supplant sim- it is not well but ill with them, and the more wealth plicity and self-sacrifice as the habit of the prosperous, they accumulate the more they provoke protest and the capitalistic system - now under severe strain - justify revolution. is likely to be found wanting and to be displaced. A life like Alfred White's - modest, sagacious, The future of wealth is thus in its own hands, and and discriminating, - thus provides the best defence the most active promoters of social revolution are that can be offered for the present system of industry. those who abuse the privilege of private ownership. A rich man who regards himself not as a posses- To meet this test, to live with simplicity, and hold sor but as a trustee, who is conscious of owing one's life and property as trusts for the common good, his wealth as much as of owning it, is more likely is to justify the language of President Eliot in con- to be judicious and far-seeing in his benefactions ferring the honorary degree on Alfred White, and I50 151 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White to know how to be 'nobly rich.' 'How hardly shall must be endowed with a constructive imagination they that have riches," said Jesus, 'enter into the which reenforces sagacity by foresight. His success, kingdom of God !' Yes, but when they do come in, like that of the enterprising financier, is in develop- having passed the barriers of their indolence and ing unsuspected resources and meeting unrecognized self-indulgence, it may be that the gates are lifted wants. He must exhibit the same qualities of ven- up as for a hard-won victory. The man of whom turesomeness and originality which make other Jesus demanded the great renunciation 'Sell that people rich. Like Wordsworth's Happy Warrior, he thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt 'Through the heat of conflict, keeps the law have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me !' In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.' was one who had 'great possessions, yet Jesus 'beholding him loved him,' and it may have been He adds to generosity prevision he has not only an that though he was 'sad at that saying, and went open hand but an open mind. away grieved,' the loving look of Jesus followed him, A sill rarer trait in the wise use of wealth is per- and made what seemed his cross become in the end sister cy. Much giving, even by generous people, is his crown. occasional, spasmodic, and transitory. An object To justify this way of life, however, more is needed is temporarily interesting; but the giver soon passes than good intentions. The administration of wealth to the next benefaction. It is said that the average as a trust calls for personal qualities quite as rare as duration of loyalty to a relief association is not more those which insure the acquisition of wealth. Dis- than five years. The enterprises which Alfred White tribution may be as profitless as hoarding. Invest- directed and reenforced are perhaps most of all ment in philanthropy calls for as much prudence as indebted to him for an indomitable persistency. investment in securities. Most givers of money wait Having once assumed an obligation, no vicissitude until, among the multitudinous calls for their aid, disheartened him and no reverse made his devotion their contribution becomes compulsory the demand slacken. It was one thing to organize a Bureau of is thrust upon them and they surrender. The wise Charities in Brooklyn, but quite another thing to distributor of wealth, on the contrary, must have a watch each detail of administration, and refresh an faculty of prevision. Precisely as the maker of money exhausted treasury during a term of thirty years. anticipates needs and foresees the course of events, It was an interesting venture to endow a Department SO the giver of money, if he is to invest it profitably, of Social Ethics; but it was a much severer test of 152 153 Present-Day Saints Alfred Tredway White character to be the anonymous source of a contin- was this habit of faith which led him to works of love. uous stream of benefactions for twenty years, and His social service was the corollary of his Christian to secure their continuance after death. To take up consecration. His generosity was the natural flower with new causes is exhilarating but to maintain of a deep-rooted and daily-watered religious life. causes where romance has been lost in routine calls The secret of his beneficent activity was in his early for the rarer gift of persistency. 'Justum et tenacem discovery and continual assurance of the life of God propositi virum' - the praise which Horace gave in the soul of man. Religious faith, in short, for one to his ideal statesman - might have been written of thus concerned with social service, is not a super- Alfred White. The just man holds on to whatever added luxury but a fundamental support. The he undertakes. interpretation of the imperfect task is in the con- These gifts of prevision and persistency, which viction of the perfect law. The escape from mechan- made Alfred White a permanent example in the ism and routine is in the freedom of faith. Serenity administration of wealth, were fortified and sustained and detachment are reserved for those who have by a still more commanding habit of mind. It was entered into the communion of the saints. his rational and lifelong faith in the Divine guidance I cherish the happy memory of spending with of the individual and of the world. The supreme Alfred White the last evening of his life. A lovely lesson of his beautiful life was that of worldly wis- daughter, in recalling whose character her friends dom derived from unworldly consecration. It was instinctively used the word 'radiant,' had served the wisdom which is from above, and which is first untiringly in Washington during the World War, pure, then peaceable, full of mercy and good fruits. and being stricken by disease was too war-worn to Behind a manner of sunny and unassuming kindli- resist it, and died as truly in the ranks as though ness which made him a delightful companion were she were killed in a trench at the front. Knowing the firmness and serenity derived from the habitual her keen interest in Hampton Institute, her husband dedication of his life to accomplish, not his own caused an inviting club-house to be built there on will but the will of Him who sent him. His religious the water-front, and her father equipped this delight- life was uncomplicated and serene. Neither domestic ful meeting place with furniture, with a fleet of canoes sorrow nor public controversy could disturb his for the use of the devoted teachers, and with an tranquillity or self-control. He directed his daily endowment for its maintenance. We were to dedi- efforts as ever in his Great Taskmaster's eye. It cate this 'Katharine House,' as it was later called, I54 155 Present-Day Saints on a Sunday in January, 1921, and I proceeded to Hampton to await Alfred's arrival, only to hear on CHAPTER VIII Sunday morning of his tragic death, and to have the PHILLIPS BROOKS sorrowing assemblage meet with the Virginian sun- shine overshadowed by a mist of tears. This last expression of his generosity - and none was more I PASS to the third, and the most impor- tant, undertaking in university life with which scrupulously studied in every detail of convenience I have had the happiness to be associated, and and charm - was a touching symbol of his self- which owed a great part of its permanence and effacing life. It was enough if he might reenforce effectiveness to the confident leadership of Phillips his son-in-law's affectionate intention, and perpetu- Brooks. ate in grateful memory, not his own name, but that Here, however, I write with less claim to intimacy of his radiant child. than in the case of Carroll Everett or of Alfred White. 'Whom does the Master choose to be his friend? Shortly after the death of Phillips Brooks, a clerical Whom does he trust his wandering flock to tend? brother, in eulogizing the Bishop, described himself Not him whose creed is longest, or whose praise as 'an intimate friend of Phillips Brooks,' but George Echoes the certitudes of other days; Gordon, who had as good a right to that title as any But the trained leader in the world's fierce strife, Whose faith is service and whose worship life; one, remarked, 'None of us has a right to say that Whose lavish heart serves with far-seeing eyes, he was intimate with Phillips Brooks.' There was, Whose truth is mercy, and whose pity wise; in other words, within a fraternal, and even playful, To whom possessions make an open door manner, an inner life of isolated experience which To save the city and to serve the poor Whose monuments of unrecorded good revealed itself only in rare moments of sympathy Escape the praises of the multitude; and more frequently, as is not unusual in preachers, For whom the city's sterile wilderness through the message of the pulpit than through can- Blossoms with homes amid its homelessness And from the deadening tumult of the street dor in conversation. One could go a long way with The fragrant garden tempts the toiler's feet. Phillips Brooks in affectionate banter or frank dis- Across the ages speaks the Son of Man : cussion but would forfeit all claim to friendship "For such God's kingdom waits since time began; if conversation became inquisitive or impertinent. This, which ye do SO self-effacingly Those who knew him best knew that there was much Unto these least, ye do it unto me." in him which they did not know. Yet this sense of a 1 I57