34 UALR Magazine

“Being a millionaire is a tough row to hoe.” The late

Winthrop Rockefeller was fond of saying that. He almost always said

“road” instead of “row.” His staff would correct him, explaining that the

metaphor had to do with chopping cotton, which had a lot of grass grow-

ing between the stalks. It was obviously something that he wasn’t too famil-

iar with, but he would nod in understanding, then most likely say it again at

the next stop.

Philanthropy by John Ward

Rockefeller did some of his

earliest public service in his

native New York, including

touring a Red Cross Center

before enlisting in the Infantry.

ROCKEFELLERTHE PHILANTHROPIST

UALR Magazine 35

Staff would also sometimes explain tohim that everybody within the sound of hisvoice — without exception and including hisstaff — would trade places with him so fastit would make your head swim. They’dhand over all their worldly possessions inexchange for his wallet (and its contents)without even having to think about it. They’dalso throw in their hound dog, if they hadone.

At this point, if there was time,Rockefeller would patiently explain what hemeant; and if you watched him and paidattention when he was engaging in the phil-anthropic activity that took so much of histime, you could see that it made sense. Itreally was tough being wealthy if you hadthe obligation, the responsibility poundedinto you since birth, to be a good stewardof the money passed on to you, to make thelives of others better with it, to cause goodthings to happen that would benefit eventhose you most likely would never see orknow.

The people of Arkansas didn’t know howto take this man, so rich and so unapproach-able (they thought), and with a legendaryname that connoted vast wealth and remote-ness from the day-to-day matters that occu-pied their own lives. Even his generosity wastreated at first with a degree of caution.

Why was he giving his money to thiscause or that? What was his motivation?Was this some part of a strategy to takeadvantage of them? The questions wereappropriate. Pretty much all the experiencewith wealthy people in Arkansas beforeRockefeller involved those rich folks trying tomake more bucks, trying to manage theaffairs of government to enrich them evenfurther by protecting and supporting theirbusiness practices. Here was a man whowas not trying to make money, he was giv-ing it away!

This was difficult for Arkansans to com-prehend. Detractors tried to make his wealtha sin, an immoral thing, somehow. The lateJames “Uncle Mac” MacKrell ran as aRepublican against Rockefeller in the 1970primary (losing miserably) by trying to claimthe high moral ground and to offer to helppeople understand “How to BeRichernrockyfela,” as he put it with his signs.Of course by then, the people trusted

When members of the Junior League of Little Rock approached

Rockefeller about helping fund a community center of the arts, he

decided if he was going to help fund an arts center, it would be for the

entire state. The Arkansas Arts Center was born.

The chapel at Tucker Prison

(seen here in 1971) was

funded in part by

Rockefeller.

36 UALR Magazine

considering sites to locate their new indus-tries. He convened hundreds of meetings atWinrock to discuss various problems beset-ting the state. As chair of the ArkansasIndustrial Development Commission he iscredited with helping to attract some 600new industries employing some 90,000people to Arkansas during the nine yearshe served in that post.

He supplemented salaries of state offi-cials in order to attract real professionalsafter he became governor, and before thathe helped pay the salaries of top-notch doc-tors who would come to the University ofArkansas for Medical Sciences to work andteach. He paid lawyers — many of themthrough the years — to do all kinds ofresearch into insurance scams, prison prac-tices, the death penalty, and voting prac-tices.

Rockefeller gave

away in a direct and

personal sort of way

some $20 million

during his lifetime, a

good bit of it after he

got to Arkansas.

Winthrop and his siblings were known not

only for their philanthropic work, but also

for their contributions to international

relations, finance, and government service.

Standing (left to right) Winthrop and

Laurance. Seated (left to right) John III,

Abby, David, and Nelson.

Rockefeller’s motives and even though theyelected Dale Bumpers instead of him in hisbid for a third term, they did not doubt hischaritable intentions or his willingness todo what he could to improve and uplift thestate he had adopted as his own on June9, 1953.

Rockefeller gave away in a direct andpersonal sort of way some $20 million dur-ing his lifetime, a good bit of it after he gotto Arkansas. Those were dollars he couldclaim on his tax forms. There was a greatdeal that could not be claimed, but whichnevertheless was charity in the best senseof the word and which swelled his chari-table giving to perhaps twice the amountclaimed.

He loaned his airplanes for trips tosometimes distant places to pleadArkansas’ case before industrial leaders

UALR Magazine 37

The Charitable Trust has continued tomake grants of money from his remainingassets to the tune of $165 million since hisdeath in 1973. And the WinthropRockefeller Foundation has distributed some$65 million since it was organized not longafter his death. It began with assets provid-ed from the Trust and has continued to growits asset base on its own. The ArkansasCommunity Foundation also owes its begin-nings to Rockefeller, as do a number of otherless visible entities throughout the state.

He felt a great responsibility, hammeredinto him from the day he was born, to dogood things with what he had, and he con-tinued until his death. Rockefeller explainedin a letter to his son, Win Paul, written whenthe latter was just a baby, that “we wereborn to wealth but from my earliest recollec-tion we were taught to respect the value ofthe dollar and to recognize that inheritedwealth was in a sense given to us in trust —that we were stewards — that while wewould live comfortably with that which weinherited and earned, we had the responsi-bility to see that these resources were alsoused wisely in the service of our fellow man.I am proud that as a family we learned thelesson of service and in humility haveattempted to follow the example of our par-ents.”

According to his son, now Arkansas’ lieu-tenant governor, Rockefeller didn’t just writeout a check and wait for the next person tocome through the door.

“It was a real tangible sort of activity inwhich one engaged on a momentary,hourly, daily basis ... something that wasvisceral more than merely cerebral,”Rockefeller said.

Anne and Bruce Bartley, children ofRockefeller’s second wife, Jeannette, werealso there to observe Rockefeller practicinghis philanthropy. Bruce noted, “He wastaught from the very beginning that his oblig-ation, his duty, was to give back. I think hefelt that almost to a fault. So on any givenday, when I would go by the office, hewould as likely be involved in some sort ofphilanthropic or charitable effort as hewould be in business or politics. Most likely,he would be doing some sort of good workcontributing his time, not just his money.”

Marion Burton, who worked with

Rockefeller, one of the first major

donors to the Arkansas Territorial

Restoration (now the Historic

Arkansas Museum) toured the

proposed site with another major

supporter, Louise Loughborough.

Many thought this classic

picture of Rockefeller

showed his belief that no

one was too big for even

the smallest tasks.

38 UALR Magazine

Rockefeller through most of his years inArkansas and continues on as a trustee of hisestate, was always “surprised andimpressed” that Rockefeller had such a greatsense of dedication to Arkansas and thedevelopment of the state.

“We have some other people in the state,”Burton said, “who had resources too, butthey weren’t willing to take the risk or makethe commitment to do many of the things thathe did.”

So yes, being rich was a tough row tohoe, if you were inclined to charity to theextent Rockefeller was. It consumed much ofhis time and emotions, his energy, and agreat deal of his wealth. He went “over” hislimit of the amount he could give away on anumber of occasions when he just couldn’tsay “no” to this cause or that one. He was asoft touch for blacks, in particular, and triedfrom the day he arrived in Arkansas to makethings more equitable. This involved gifts ofmoney to causes that he thought would helpin this, but it also meant that as governor hewould see to it that blacks found better jobsin government, that all state facilities weredesegregated, and that “empowerment”would be spread out to everybody evenbefore that became a buzzword.

One program he initiated was dubbed“Furniture for Families.” Rockefeller got theidea right after he became governor thatblack people in particular were in need offurniture for their homes. Indeed, many wereclamoring for just that kind of help, or that’show Rockefeller interpreted it. So he pro-posed a program for them to help them-selves. He brought in a man who was anexpert in building furniture out of scrap lum-ber and other discarded items, rented awarehouse to set up the program, and thenproceeded to have constructed items of furni-ture that could be built by the persons in needthemselves.

The program bombed, of course. The staffexplained to Rockefeller that the people did-n’t actually want or care to know how tobuild their own furniture, even if the rawmaterial and know-how were available.What they wanted, the staff pointed out, wasthe money to buy their own stuff, readymade. Rockefeller threw in the towel early onthat, sent the furniture maker on his way andnever mentioned “Furniture for Families”again.

Though wounded himself,

Rockefeller (front row center) took

command during a kamikaze attack

in the South Pacific during his Army

years. Later in the war, he took food

and provisions to communities of

Phillipine civilian war victims.

As Governor, Rockefeller took his

“Traveling Office” across the state

14 times to not only learn more

about philanthropic needs

statewide, but to make sure the

people of the state stayed in touch

with their government.

“We have some

other people in the

state who had

resources too, but they

weren’t willing to take

the risk or make the

commitment to do

many of the things

that he did.”

—Marion Burton, Trusteeof the Rockefeller Estate

So Rockefeller wasn’t always successfulwith his charitable efforts or for that matter inconvincing other rich Arkansans to partici-pate with him in doing good. He had comefrom New York with the experience of rais-ing lots of money in the Greater New YorkFund effort, and also leading the merger ofNew York University and Bellevue MedicalCenter. He helped raise millions of dollars toenable that to happen.

It was in dramatic contrast whenRockefeller set about to establish a healthclinic in Perry County, Arkansas. He hadnoted that the county had no medical ser-vices, not even one doctor, and he wantedto do something about it. He got it all orga-nized, helped the county raise money —they came up with $13,000, which was aconsiderable sum in those days and from acounty where the poverty level was quitehigh — and put up all the other money him-self that was needed to build the clinic andstaff it with a physician and other health ser-vice personnel. It was quite a difference inscale from New York to Perryville, butRockefeller was not impressed so much withthat as with the opportunity to take ideasdeveloped back east and apply them inrural Arkansas.

The clinic did fine for a while, but doctors

His first chance to exhibit philanthropic

leadership came when Rockefeller, third

from left, led the Greater New York

Fund. To the right of Rockefeller are

celebrities Jimmy Durante, Jane

Froman, and Ray Bolger.

came and went and nearby Morrilton(which upgraded its hospital and medicalservices) and Conway weren’t that faraway in terms of driving distance. As morepeople bought automobiles, the clinic thatRockefeller had imagined serving for manyyears went into a permanent state ofdecline. Today it has withered away to justa shell. The patient rooms are no longerused, all the health personnel are longsince gone, and one doctor, Dr. Ben Hyatt,just uses an office in the clinic for his privatepractice on a part-time basis. He doesn’tknow what will happen when he retires. Allthe board of directors are deceased; noone was ever replaced.

This can only be described as a failure.The dream was not realized. The charitydid not “take.” There were other failures inRockefeller’s life of philanthropy, but therewere remarkable successes as well. Oneexample is the Arkansas Arts Center. TheJunior League of Little Rock came to Mr.and Mrs. Rockefeller with a plan to raise$250,000 to develop a community centerof the arts in Little Rock.

In an interview published in theArkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2000,Jeanne Hamilton remembers she and sev-eral colleagues, who were pushing the pro- UALR Magazine 39

ject with her, had lunch with the Rockefellers.He responded to their entreaty, “Well, girls(most assuredly not politically correct nowand probably not then, either) if we’re goingto build an arts center, let’s do it right.” Ms.Hamilton said that opened whole new vistasand they made an executive decision rightthen and there not to build a Little Rock ArtsCenter but an Arkansas Arts Center.

In a letter some time afterward,Rockefeller explained to a New Yorkfriend, referring to himself and his wife,“we felt that their sights were too low andessentially would only produce disappoint-ment.” Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller hadagreed to help if a statewide campaignwere organized. It was, and theRockefellers stumped the state, raisingmoney and increasing the interest ofArkansans in something of great andenduring quality that would enhance thecultural life and understanding of themand their children and grandchildren.

Rockefeller contributed $432,426 throughthat year and would contribute another $1.6million before his death, with more to comefrom the Charitable Trust afterward. Mrs.

Rockefeller also financially supported the ArtsCenter and served as both a trustee and thenpresident. A great deal of the credit for thesuccess of the Arkansas Arts Center must alsogo to Townsend Wolfe, the director for manyyears, who was a rare combination of excel-lent artistic taste and talent and impressiveorganizational skills. He made theRockefeller’s money go beyond anythingeven imagined by his predecessors.

In 1982, when the Winthrop RockefellerGallery was added, Wolfe pointed out that ithad no Rockefeller money in it at all. “Wedid not approach any member of the family,the Charitable Trust, or the Foundation. Itwas a way in which I wanted this communi-ty indeed to honor someone who had doneso much for us.”

So did Rockefeller change Arkansas withhis philanthropy? When you combine thatwith his leadership in other areas — businessand politics in particular — you have toagree that he did. Arkansas afterRockefeller is clearly not the same as theArkansas he found when he arrived. Hisown life of philanthropy and leadership didindeed change Arkansas. ■

In August 1963, state

business and community

leaders honored

Rockefeller’s 10th year as

a Citizen of Arkansas.

40 UALR Magazine