Charity Drivers

Franklin Roosevelt last week stood under the south portico of the White House and declared:

"I am particularly sorry that Mrs. Roosevelt could not be beside me today. You know the great interest she has in all that you are doing. But she has a slight touch of the flu, and the doctor told her not to come downstairs. . . .

''I resent and you resent, I am sure, those supercilious and uncharitable sneers which, from a small element among us, have been directed against those in need and against those who were honestly seeking to help those in need. . . .

"The generosity of our American people is a fine tradition--we have never failed to heed the call of distress. I have confidence that the appeal about to be launched for this fifth Mobilization for Human Needs will strike a responsive chord throughout the country. . . ." Thereafter the 300 charitarians on the White House lawn below divided into two groups. A big female contingent, headed by Mrs. Harper Sibley, went to the White House state dining room to hear Chief Katherine F. Lenroot of the U. S. Children's Bureau urge them to explain to the public what fine things the New Deal is doing for the underprivileged. To the Mayflower Hotel went 101 male charitarians, headed by Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, to decide how much U. S. industry should contribute to private charity.

This year for the first time corporate charity becomes legally respectable. Under the new tax law a corporation can deduct from its taxable earnings gifts to charity up to 5% of its net income. Chairman Donaldson Brown of General Motors' finance committee proposed a yardstick for corporate giving: let all businesses base their contributions to the community chest on their share of the community's taxes and employes.

Several chest managers objected that this rule might cut down the gifts of other contributors. Some businessmen protested that the yardstick should be not taxes paid but profits made in a community. Chain store men declared the system too inflexible for their business. Railroad and utility men promised to consider the plan at meetings of their industries. Bitterest criticism came from Catholic Father Edward Roberts Moore of Manhattan who denounced any plan to scale charity contributions on a business basis as "shockingly reactionary." Retorted Gerard Swope: "Don't forget to distinguish between the spirit of giving which individuals may enjoy and the duties which corporation heads have to their stockholders." Declared Lammot du Pont: "Whatever yardstick is laid down would be criticized unless it were on a sound business basis. The law is definite. You cannot spend other people's money except for their benefit."

President Wendell Lewis Willkie of Commonwealth & Southern Corp. listened ruefully to this talk. Finally he spoke up: "I don't like that damn word 'yardstick.' Substitution of a 'formula,' however, helps me very much."

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