Near East Colleges

Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, dead 18 months, lived again last week for 600 men and women who attended a banquet in Manhattan for the benefit of the six U. S. colleges in the Near East. Those colleges are Robert College of Constantinople and Constantinople Woman's College, the American University of Beirut, the International College at Smyrna, Athens College and Sofia American Schools Inc. of Samokov in Bulgaria. They have 2,838 students, from every nationality along the eastern Mediterranean littoral and in the Asia Minor hinterland. Also, U. S. and English students attend them.

Christian missionaries founded or fostered those six colleges. Funds came chiefly from U. S. rich men. But not sufficient funds for the ever widening activities of the colleges. They now need $15,000,000 endowment, had until last week accumulated $6,000,000. Then the Rockefeller Foundation gave $1,000,000. The estate of Charles M. Hall, who died in 1914 after growing wealthy from his process of manufacturing aluminum, gave another. Previously his estate had given two millions. Thus a need for seven millions more remains. Were Cleveland Hoadley Dodge alive he would have led the endowment campaign. All his life, as did his ancestors, the Dodges (religion and education) and the Phelpses (copper mining), he gave liberally to religious and charitable institutions. During the War he organized the Near East Relief. Solicitors who asked money for it could say: "One hundred cents of every dollar go for relief--none for expenses, which are met privately." That was because Cleveland Hoadley Dodge paid all expenses personally, besides donating largely.

Rich men tend to study some one field of philanthropy and to it give their money and energies. Mr. Dodge's field was preeminently the Near East. He was President of the Board of Trustees of Robert College. His daughter Elizabeth Wainwright Dodge married Professor George Herbert Huntington of Robert College. His son Bayard Dodge is president of the American University. Bayard Dodge's twin brother Cleveland Earl Dodge supervises the family finances, administers its philanthropies. The Dodge family might have given the seven millions that the Near East colleges yet need for endowment. Arthur Curtiss James, reputedly the owner of more railroad securities than any other man, who attended last week's dinner, might have given the sum. Or Banker William Morgan Kingsley, or any of a dozen other persons there.

But the colleges are a broad U. S. activity. Their Eurasian students want the moral support of widespread U. S. interest. Their teachers want thousands, not 600 persons, backing the schools. Therefore the committees are making nation-wide the appeal for the $7,000,000.