A SOP TO CERBERUS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2617, 27 September 1909, Page 2

A SOP TO CERBERUS.

MB. ROCKEFELLER'S GREAT

GIFTS.

Another sop to Cerberus has been handed out by John D. Rockefeller, the Standard Oil multi-millionaire. Upon his seventieth birthday the magnate sent to the General Education Board a notification that on Ist August he would pay to its credit an additional £2,000,000. Little or no general enthusiasm is evoked in the United States by the periodical great girts ot monev made by Rockefeller to institutions of learning, writes the American correspondent of the Age. The old money king seems to yearn m pathetic fashion for some sign of popular good will; he yearns in vain. His name is anathema, and probably were he to strip himself bare of all his possessions there would be little change in public sentiment. The public has been too well informed of the iniqui - ous methods, of the Standard Oil 1 in crushing competition, and the verdict as to John D. Rockefeller has been registered. It is doubtful if any American millionaire, since the death of Jay Gould, has been so heartily despised and denounced as Rockefeller. His benefactions since he started giving have been on the most generous scale. It is said that he has S 1 ™ 11 3™™ s °f £24,000,000. Of this £5,000,000 has gone to the University of Chicago, and £lO 000,000 to the General Education Boa’-d The latter is an institution empowered to apply the interest on the property entrusted to its keeping to the endowment of colleges. There is always a condition to the gift of a college, namely, that the college itself must raise at least an equivalent amount. The General Education Board has been in existence since 1905. To date the total additions to collegiate endowments through the agency of the hoard amounts to between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000.