"To build support for the Orthopedic Hospital, he and Mittie gave a reception at 57th Street for their wealthiest friends, and with the occasion in full swing he signaled for attention, then dramatically threw back the doors to the dining room. On top of the great round dining table, against a background of heavy paneled walls with inlaid designs of lobsters, fish, and other such symbols of plenty, he had placed several pathetically crippled children, some sitting, some lying on their backs, all in various braces of the kind only large donations could provide. Conie stood beside the children to help show how the braces were fitted and how they worked. The effect was stunning. Mrs. John Jacob Astor III is said to have announced at once that 'of course' Theodore must have help in his work."*
Cold, man. That is cold. Handicapped children put on display on a table. Fundraising tool. Worked on Mrs. Astor! Anything for a good cause.
It was the Gilded Age. Why gild the lily? Mark Twain asked. Because having everything was never quite enough. It was the age of immense fortunes, and the age of grinding poverty. Industrial cruelty where the wealthiest--There never had been wealth like that before.--lived within walking distance of the poorest--There never had been poverty like that in the cities before.--in the great centers of industrial capitalism: New York City where Theodore Roosevelt, Senior raised funds for the hospital; in Pittsburgh, where Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick built their factories and their fortunes, their libraries and their museums, on the backs and with the blood of the working poor and escaped for relaxation to their golden pond above Johnstown.
There was no cognitive dissonance with the Gilders, no contradiction in their lives. They were entitled: it was their factory, it was their money, they earned it. "Thee" Roosevelt was the least of them; he used his money (his father's money, C.V.S. Roosevelt's money) to buy his way out of the Civil War and used his money to found Union Leagues; there was no contradiction for Thee. He was the least of them. He spent almost all of his adult working life founding and funding hospitals and museums and charities for the working poor. He worked, he really worked hard on doing good with his father's money. He would ladle food onto the plates of the poor while dressed in evening wear, and then dash off to the society function. Anything for a good cause...Almost anything. It was cold, man.
*Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough (139).
Cold, man. That is cold. Handicapped children put on display on a table. Fundraising tool. Worked on Mrs. Astor! Anything for a good cause.
It was the Gilded Age. Why gild the lily? Mark Twain asked. Because having everything was never quite enough. It was the age of immense fortunes, and the age of grinding poverty. Industrial cruelty where the wealthiest--There never had been wealth like that before.--lived within walking distance of the poorest--There never had been poverty like that in the cities before.--in the great centers of industrial capitalism: New York City where Theodore Roosevelt, Senior raised funds for the hospital; in Pittsburgh, where Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick built their factories and their fortunes, their libraries and their museums, on the backs and with the blood of the working poor and escaped for relaxation to their golden pond above Johnstown.
There was no cognitive dissonance with the Gilders, no contradiction in their lives. They were entitled: it was their factory, it was their money, they earned it. "Thee" Roosevelt was the least of them; he used his money (his father's money, C.V.S. Roosevelt's money) to buy his way out of the Civil War and used his money to found Union Leagues; there was no contradiction for Thee. He was the least of them. He spent almost all of his adult working life founding and funding hospitals and museums and charities for the working poor. He worked, he really worked hard on doing good with his father's money. He would ladle food onto the plates of the poor while dressed in evening wear, and then dash off to the society function. Anything for a good cause...Almost anything. It was cold, man.
*Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough (139).
