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Cracks in the Foundation: Frederick T. Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the China Medical Board

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

John S. Baick
John S. Baick
Affiliation:
Western New England College
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Extract

As his lengthy career neared an end, Rockefeller advisor Frederick T. Gates made a bold and unsuccessful proposal to the trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1924, asking them to invest $265 million in the China Medical Board. Founded in 1914, the China Medical Board (CMB) was one of the earliest ventures of the Rockefeller Foundation, the most prominent of the Progressive Era's giant secular philanthropic foundations. The CMB was also the last major philanthropic effort by Gates, the man most responsible for shifting the Rockefellers from denominational charity to international philanthropy. After a decade in existence, the CMB had not come close to realizing the hopes of its founder. Only with this massive, unprecedented infusion of capital, Gates explained, could his dream “spring into existence full panoplied.” This dream was never fully realized because of its astonishingly grandiose scale and complexity: its goal was to make Chinese medical care the finest in the world, and in the process close the chasm that he saw between denominational Christianity and the needs of the modern world. Although the story of the China Medical Board is the story of a failed vision, it also affords a glimpse of the cracks at the base of modern American philanthropy.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 2004 , pp. 59 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2004

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References

1 Frederick T. Gates, “Tentative Suggestions as to World Strategy in Medicine (1924),” Frederick T. Gates Collection, Box 4, Folder 79, Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC).

2 The most overwhelming praise for the China Medical Board comes from Raymond B. Fosdick's history of the Rockefeller Foundation, in which he calls the CMB and its work “the best that Western civilization had to offer to a people whom it profoundly admired and in whose future it deeply believed. It was a gift inspired by no motive other than a desire to promote the welfare of men.” Fosdick, Raymond B., The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York, 1952), 91.Google Scholar The strongest critique of the China Medical Board comes from E. Richard Brown, who argues that Gates had “unabashed imperialist motivations” for supporting the introduction of Western medicine in China, which would help “convert and colonize the heathen” and thus pave the way for Western industrial capitalism. Brown, E. Richard, Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America (Berkeley, 1979), 122Google Scholar and “Rockefeller Medicine in China: Professionalism and Imperialism,” in Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad, ed., Robert Amove (Boston, 1980): 123–46. Much of the scholarship on the China Medical Board also glosses over the complex story of its creation, instead focusing on its most heavily-funded and highest-profile venture, the Peking Union Medical College. Bowers, John Z., Western Medicine in a Chinese Palace: Peking Union Medical College, 1917–1951 (Philadelphia, 1972)Google Scholar; Bullock, Mary Brown, An American Transplant: The Rockefeller Foundation and Peking Union Medical College (Berkeley, 1980)Google Scholar; Chen, Kaiyi, “Quality Versus Quantity: The Rockefeller Foundation and Nurses' Training in China,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 5 (Spring 1996): 77–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferguson, Mary E., China Medical Board and Peking Union Medical College: A Chronicle of Fruitful Collaboration, 1914–1951 (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; and Ma, Qiusha, “The Rockefeller Foundation and Modern Medical Education in China, 1915–1951” (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1995).Google Scholar

3 For the purposes of this paper, the capital of China in the Republican period will be referred to as Peking rather than Beijing.

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10 Ibid., 49.

11 Ibid., 56–72.

12 Ibid., 71–77.

13 Ibid., 80, 83.

14 Ibid., 179–80.

15 Ibid., 83.

16 Ibid., 88–92.

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25 Although he acknowledged that his autobiography was “not a medical treatise,” he frequently returned in it to his refrain of attacking the practice of medicine in America in his autobiography. Gates, , Chapters, 26–27Google Scholar, 79–80.

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33 Of course, the same can be said today.

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38 Gates, , Chapters, 131.Google Scholar

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40 Gates to R.F. Fitch, March 6, 1907; Rockefeller Family Archives, RG ?, 2, O, Folder: Proposed Foreign Mission Fund, 1906–1909, RAC. R.F. Fitch was head of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in New York.

41 Gates continued making inquiries and contacts among missionaries, but he was always careful to emphasize that no plans or financial commitments had been made. News of Gates' activities circulated quickly, if inaccurately. In March of 1907, a few months after Burton first suggested a Christian university in China, Burton excitedly wrote to Gates about a rumored Rockefeller pledge of $50 million to advance “education and civilization in China.” Burton was mistaken, but his letter is clear evidence of how carefully Gates was being watched. Burton to Gates, March 16, 1907; Rockefeller Family Archives, RG III, 2,0, Folder: Proposed Foreign Mission Fund, 1906–1909, RAC.

42 This meeting has also been called the China Centenary Conference. Bates, M. Searle, “The Theology of American Missionaries in China, 1900–1950,” in The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, ed., Fairbank, John K. (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 143.Google Scholar

43 Gates to Reverend Arthur H. Smith, 1907; Smith to Gates, June 8, 1907; Smith to Gates, July 29, 1907; Rockefeller Family Archives, RG III, 2, O. Folder: Proposed Foreign Mission Fund, 1906–1909, RAC.

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45 Gates arranged for $20,000 to be given to support the commission, with the provision that the source of the gift not be publicized. The subsequent President's report for the University of Chicago listed the gift as “from a friend for Oriental Investigation — $20,000.” Lewerth, , Rockefeller Foundation History, 524–25Google Scholar; Bullock, , An American Transplant, 33–34.Google Scholar

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55 Indeed, by the late 1890s, Rockefeller, Sr. was largely absent from the day-to-day operations of his financial and charitable efforts, with Gates claiming a great share of these duties. Rockefeller, Jr. gradually assumed his share of this work. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to John D. Rockefeller, Sr., December 31, 1906; Gates to Jr., January 23, 1907. Rockefeller Family Archives, RG III, 2, O. Folder: Proposed Foreign Mission Fund, 1906–1909, RAC.

56 Gates had two “attacks of heart palpitations” in 1909. In addition, although he would not know it for years, he was probably suffering from diabetes from 1909–23. Gates to “Mont,” June 4, 1909, Gates Collection, Box 2, Folder 31, RAC; Gates, “My Resignation,” Gates Collection, Box 4, Folder 78: Gates Papers 1916–17, RAC.

57 Chernow, , Titan, 567.Google Scholar

58 “China Conference of the Rockefeller Foundation,” Rockefeller Family Archives, RG 2, Series O, Box 11, Folder 88, RAC. Gates had been planning this conference since at least 1910, when he asked the University of Chicago's Burton and Judson, who had first raised the subject of Rockefeller philanthropy in China, to draw a list of those “would best serve the purposes which you know we want to serve, viz. as eyes, ears and brains for us in what we may wish to do for China and the Orient.” Gates to Judson, March 4, 1910, Gates Collection, Box 1, Folder 10, RAC.

59 Buck, Peter, American Science and Modern China, 1876–1936 (New York, 1980), 55–57Google Scholar; Fosdick, , The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation, 24–25.Google Scholar

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61 Eliot's interest in China was especially strong after his visit to East Asia in 1912 on behalf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His observations and opinions, including the need for medical education in China, were published in his study Some Roads Toward Peace (Washington, DC, 1913). Eliot asked Gates on several occasions to help support the Harvard Medical School of Shanghai, which Eliot had helped found in 1911, and which despite its name was an independent entity. Gates Collection, Box 1, Folder 21: Charles W. Eliot 1910–1914, RAC; “China Conference of the Rockefeller Foundation.”

62 In his 1900 tract “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation,” Mott expressed concern with social causes, but emphasized that the salvation of souls was still “the chief business of the Church.” Gorrell, Donald K., The Age of Social Responsibility: The Social Gospel in the Progressive Era, 1900–1920 (Macon, GA, 1988), 84Google Scholar; “China Conference of the Rockefeller Foundation.”

63 “China Conference of the Rockefeller Foundation.”

64 Ibid.

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76 Ibid.

77 Gates, “Thoughts on Medical Missions and the Spirit and Teaching of Jesus by a member of the Rockefeller Foundation.”

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid.

81 Ibid.

82 The friend was Francis Peabody, father of Francis Weld Peabody of the Judson Commission. Peabody had heard about the details of the meeting and wrote to Gates out of concern. Francis Peabody to Gates, December 15, 1914, Gates Collection, Box 1, Folder 14, RAC.

83 Minutes of the First Meeting of the China Medical Board — December 11, 1914; Rockefeller Foundation, Box 24, Series 601 — China, RG 1 — Projects, Folder 233 A, RAC.

84 “Press Release of the Peking Union Medical College,” Rockefeller Foundation, Box 26, Series 601, RG 1, 601 A, Folder 239, RAC.

85 Gates, “The Gradual and Orderly Development.”

86 Besides never comprehending why he was chosen, he also noted ruefully that he was actually chosen director while on a trip through the Southern states for the General Education Board, “and when I got back to New York I found that I had a new job with a whole set of duties mapped out.” Lewerth, , Rockefeller Foundation History, 522Google Scholar, 568, 573.

87 Gates, “The China Medical Board,” Frederick T. Gates Collection, Box 1, Folder 10, RAC; Fosdick, , The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation, 83–85.Google Scholar

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90 Gates occasionally antagonized missionaries, yet he was also willing to give them enough financial support to keep them off balance as to his motives. He therefore authorized grants to missionary societies, hospitals, and so forth to demonstrate CMB support. Although these gifts — usually in the thousands of dollars — were not substantial when compared to the millions that Gates was investing in the PUMC, they did help keep missionary resistance in check.

91 Abraham Flexner helped provide Buttrick with a quick overview of medical education, but acknowledged that Buttrick's importance lay in his “superb diplomacy” with missionary societies. Flexner, Abraham, Abraham Flexner: An Autobiography (New York, 1960), 141–42.Google Scholar

92 Chernow, , Titan, 569.Google Scholar

93 Gates, “Shanghai — A Review of Facts.”

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95 Karl, and Katz, , “Donors, Trastees, Staffs,” 10.Google Scholar

96 Gates, “The China Medical Board,” Gates Collection, Box 1, Folder 10, RAC.

97 Gates, “Tentative Suggestions as to World Strategy in Medicine (1924),” Gates Collection, Box 4, Folder 79, RAC.

98 Gates, , “The China Medical Board,” 11.Google Scholar

99 Ibid., 4.

100 Bullock, , An American Transplant, 35.Google Scholar

101 Besides, by this time John D. Rockefeller, Jr. had come under the guidance of Mackenzie King and Ivy Lee, who helped the Rockefeller family carve out a more favorable public image. Chernow, , Titan, 581–86.Google Scholar

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105 Despite his crucial role in advancing medical research, Gates reserved for himself many Victorian and pre-Victorian attitudes, and in his biography he smugly noted that the large size of his family was due to the “Puritan ancestral blood of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, without the least degeneration or dilution. Since 1685 there had been no intermarriage on either side with later arrivals from abroad.” If Gates saw 1685 as an appropriately safe date for the walling off of his family from “later arrivals,” his attitude toward eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century immigrants can be easily inferred. Gates, , Chapters, 64–65, 125.Google Scholar

106 One must also consider how many others like Gates might be lurking in the margins of the nebulous Progressive Era. If he managed to reorient the Calvinist imperatives of his ancestors in service to the Rockefellers, his ambitions were far from realized. How many other foundation officers, advisors, and experts lent their vision and passion into ventures that were sanitized for public consumption? An excellent recent collection of essays suggests that the history of philanthropy is entering a new phase of development that might consider such questions. Friedman, Lawrence J. and McGarvie, Mark D., eds., Chanty, Philanthropy, and Civility in American History (Cambridge, UK, 2003).Google Scholar