The private mail of the president of Harvard College contained one morning, the latter part of April, 1895, a letter which was ever afterwards preserved as the most important document in the archives of the great university. Its appearance before it was opened gave no indication of its importance. It was enclosed in a plain, square, white envelope, postmarked “New York,” and in addition to the address it was marked “Personal” in bold letters, heavily underlined.
As the president opened it and took out the single sheet of note-paper within, another slip fell upon the table, blank side uppermost. The shape and the perforated edge around two sides of the slip suggested a check, and the president carelessly turned it over before looking at the note. It was a check, and when he caught sight of the figures in one corner the serene dignity of the eminent savant was betrayed into an exclamation that made him seem for the moment quite like other men. He readjusted his spectacles in genuine agitation and stared at the check for some{182} moments before he recovered his self-possession sufficiently to read the letter. This was the epistle:
Strong & Co., Bankers and Brokers,
New Street, New York.
New York, April 23, 1895.
My Dear Sir:
By direction of one of our clients I send you herewith my personal check for five million dollars ($5,000,000) payable to your personal order. This money you are at liberty to devote to the general uses of Harvard University, in such a manner as you and your associates, the Fellows and Overseers, shall deem most advantageous. The donor desires to remain entirely unknown in connection with the gift. His only suggestion regarding its use is that one million dollars more or less shall be devoted to the equipment or support of the astronomical observatories which the university has established in South America.
I remain, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
John Wharton.
P.S.—I shall esteem it a personal favor if you will confine all information regarding my connection with the matter to as limited a circle as possible.—J. W.
That was all—just a curt, matter-of-fact business communication. It could not be a hoax, for the check was certified by the Chemical National Bank. It needed but the president’s name on the back to make it worth the five millions in cash which it called for. The more he thought about it the nearer the president’s mind approached to a condition of ex{183}citement. He got up and took a turn around the room. His secretary came in just then, but stopped in amazement on discovering evidences of an agitation which he had never detected before in his chief.
“Is there anything the matter, sir?” he asked anxiously.
“Nothing at all,” responded the head of America’s greatest university, with a partial return to his usual placid manner. “I am glad you came in. I wish you would call a special meeting of the Fellows, to be held here at four o’clock this afternoon. Send special messengers and telegrams and say that the business will be of the utmost importance.”
The secretary’s apprehensions increased, but he hastened to obey instructions. The next day the papers announced the magnificent gift to Harvard and tried in vain to gratify the universal curiosity about the unknown donor.
If there was any envy of Harvard’s good fortune at New Haven, it was dissipated two or three days later when Yale rejoiced in the receipt of a mysterious gift of the same magnificent proportions. In the case of Yale, however, the endowment was coupled with a condition or request which excited much surprise and made no end of talk. The mysterious donor asked that half of the five millions should be set apart as a fund to be used under the direction of the Yale{184} Scientific School in practical investigation of the subject of a?rial navigation. This was a trust which the university accepted with a good deal of misgiving. When the matter was considered by the trustees there was even some opposition to the acceptance of this portion of the donation on such terms.
“Must we set our professors to building flying machines, and compel them to risk their necks in balloons?” exclaimed one of the older members of the board in some asperity, and with small measure of gratitude to the giver of such a fund. “For my part, I hope the university will not go to the absurd extreme of turning our scientific school into a Darius Green workshop to gratify a generous but whimsical millionaire.”
But the old gentleman was in a small minority, and he was quite silenced by the remarks of a younger and more progressive member, whose investigations in practical science had made him famous. Besides, who ever heard of a gift of $2,500,000 being refused by an educational institution, no matter how hard the conditions?
“I do not regard this gift as either absurd or whimsical,” said the man of science and sense, with much emphasis. “On the contrary, I welcome it with enthusiasm as a practical pledge of the next and greatest triumph of civilization. A?rial navigation is the{185} one branch of practical science in which America is not keeping pace with the foremost investigators. France and Germany and even Russia have obtained better results than we have. The reason, of course, is that there are military incentives in Europe which do not exist here. But I firmly believe that this gift will enable us to gain the same mastery of the paths of the winds that we have already won over the land and the sea. No gift to the cause of physical science could be more valuable and more timely than this. I hope it will be accepted with the sincerest expression of our gratitude.”
And so it was. National curiosity was again aroused to highest pitch. Nor was it allowed to subside, for within a month fresh benefactions, all anonymous and all dealing with large sums, were announced. Chicago’s fund for a memorial of the Columbian Fair received a round million. New York rejoiced in the news that Samuel J. Tilden’s thwarted attempt to provide a magnificent free library for his fellow-citizens was to succeed after all. Three millions had come from somewhere—the trustees would not say where—to be used in carrying out the plans of the dead statesman on the same scale that he had wisely designed.
Wellesley and Vassar became involved in the same delightful mystery. Woman’s curiosity in her chief{186} seats of learning was put under the strain of accepting without question gifts of $2,000,000 to each institution from an unknown hand. The test or the temptation was safely borne, for no hint of even the manner in which the princely fortunes were bestowed ever reached an outsider’s ear. There were no restrictions accompanying these gifts, beyond a request in each case that they should be devoted mainly to those branches of training and study which best fitted woman for the domestic circle. Inasmuch as this suggestion was construed to admit of almost any interpretation in the field of “the higher education of woman,” it was felt to be no restriction at all. Who dared assert that a knowledge of Greek, a familiarity with the latest mysteries of astronomy, and a training in the higher mathematics did not deserve important places in the equipment of woman for the domestic circle of 1895? When it was proposed in the governing boards of the two colleges that the departments of physical training, English literature, music, and the culinary art should benefit in greater proportion than certain others under the new funds, the makers of the suggestion were frowned upon with some scorn. It was undoubtedly the intention of their unknown benefactor, so declared the more advanced spirits in the great cause of “the emancipation of woman,” that his money should be used in providing that broad{187} culture which alone would make the woman of the twentieth century the highest development of her sex. She should have the same advantages, the same training as her brothers. In no other way could she become “best fitted for the domestic circle.”
No such impetus was ever given the cause of education in America as it received in the spring of 1895 from this great series of contributions. The subject became a matter of world-wide wonder and discussion. It did not seem possible that such treasure could come all from one source, and yet no such epidemic of generosity among millionaires had ever been heard of. There were not half a dozen men in the country who could make presents of $5,000,000 checks. Speculation, and there was plenty of it, was in vain, however. The secret was well kept by all its possessors, and beyond a few hints that the eccentric distributor of millions was a New Yorker, who kept a balance of at least $5,000,000 in cash always on hand at the Chemical Bank, nothing transpired.
In the rapid life of the American metropolis curiosity over this subject was soon overshadowed by a new wonder. The city’s most grievous public problem, the bête noire of a decade, was suddenly solved. Vainly had private enterprise and public commissions sought to provide the congested city a satisfactory system of rapid transit. The growth of{188} the town had been checked, its prosperity had been restricted, and infinite personal discomfort had been suffered by its citizens, because of the peculiar difficulties of the situation. In a city long and narrow, densely populated, and surrounded on three sides by water, the quick arteries of passenger travel must go below the surface or into the air. Everybody who has traveled on the London underground railroad will admit that the tunnel system is to be avoided at any reasonable expense. But everybody else who has walked beneath the elevated tracks in New York, or lodged near the line, will say that railways in the public streets are an almost intolerable nuisance.
The only system satisfactory in itself which had been proposed in New York was a great four-track viaduct line, running, not through the streets, but upon its own location cut through the center of the blocks from end to end of the city. But the plan could not be considered for a moment. The expense was prohibitive. It would cost $100,000,000 for right of way and construction, to say nothing of equipment. The revenue from such a road would not pay interest on such an enormous sum, and private capital would not undertake the enterprise. Some people had urged the project upon the city as a municipal undertaking. Perhaps in an ideal community such a suggestion might be valuable, but not in a city{189} ruled by Tammany Hall or any other political party.
So the question was at a deadlock, and the evils of the situation had become well-nigh intolerable, when the mayor of New York received one day in June a letter from the now well-known firm of Strong & Co., containing an amazing proposition. They were prepared to organize a corporation, and guarantee the construction of such a viaduct road as had been proposed, provided the city would consent to certain conditions. The road would be built with the proceeds of an issue of $100,000,000 in bonds, which Strong & Co. offered to subscribe in full. These bonds should bear interest—and here was the amazing feature of the proposition—at the rate of one per cent per annum. No one could doubt that the proposed road would easily earn the necessary $1,000,000 per year for payment of interest on bonds which the proposition called for, and it would surely yield a substantial sum for dividends on stock in addition.
The principal conditions imposed by Messrs. Strong & Co. in making their extraordinary offer was that the motive power used on the road should be electricity, or some other element than steam, and that a uniform rate of fare of five cents within the city limits should never be exceeded. It was further insisted that the charter should provide that the city should not take over the road by purchase or otherwise {190}without the consent of two thirds of the bond-holders, and that capital stock should be issued only upon payment of its face value in cash into the company’s treasury, the total amount of such stock never to exceed $20,000,000, except by consent of the bond-holders. Messrs. Strong & Co. further suggested that dividends upon stock should be limited to ten per cent. When earnings exceeded the sum necessary for the payment of a ten per cent dividend, fares should be reduced below the current rate. If the mayor and his advisers approved of the plan as outlined they were invited to join in the name of the city with Messrs. Strong & Co. and others in petitioning the General Assembly at Albany for the necessary legislation.
The mayor read slowly the letter in which the plan was set forth in much greater detail than above outlined. When he had finished he looked out of the window upon the trees in the City Hall Park and whistled softly. He allowed his mind to dwell for a few moments upon the significance of what was contained in the plain epistle he held in his hand. Its meaning for the metropolis of the western world, over which he presided, was beyond his mental grasp at first. The one great peril which threatened to dwarf its prosperity and stunt its growth had been removed at a single stroke. It was too good to be true, and{191} the mayor read the long letter from beginning to end a second time. The proposition was clear and specific, and the potent signature left no doubt of its genuineness. The mayor would have lost no time in sharing the good news with his friends and with the city itself; but a postscript contained a request that the matter should be regarded as confidential until there had been a personal exchange of views upon the subject. Messrs.............