The Leipzig Connection:  Sabotage of the US Educational System  -- Chapter 5
 

The Leipzig Connection: Sabotage of the US Educational System by Paolo Lionni

Chapter 5. A Gift From God (excerpts)

"It took hundreds of millions of dollars to turn American education around in that short a period of time. Where did the money that inflamed this epidemic come from? How was it spent? How did the mainstream of experimental psychology meet up with a mainstream of millions of dollars?

The answer, it must be admitted, is enough to make one feel distinctly uneasy. The new psychology tapped the richest existing vein of American wealth and philanthropy and, in short order, won for itself the backing of almost unlimited funds. Here were its new buildings, its endowments, its publications, its research facilities, transportation, salaries - the wherewithal to spread like wildfire throughout the entire fabric of American education.

The checks were to emanate not from the uptown headquarters of Columbia Teachers College in New York City's Morningside Heights, but from No. 26 Broadway, around the corner from the financial capitol of the world on Wall Street.

No. 26 Broadway was the most famous business address in the country, perhaps in the world. It was the corporate home of the Standard Oil Company, owned and operated by John D. Rockefeller, Sr. The story of how the resources of the great oil monopoly came to be used in the spread of a new psychology covers a period of some 40 years, and begins with Mr. Rockefeller himself."

John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

"As every school child used to know, Rockefeller created one of the largest monopolies of his time. He began in the oil business in 1863, and by 1880 had won control of 95% of U.S. oil production. He controlled the drilling for oil, the refineries, the prices, and the transportation of crude and refined oil through an intricate tank car system. He sabotaged his competitors, hired spies to infiltrate the businesses of his enemies, and squeezed out independent operators by carefully conceived secret contracts. By 1910, when a glass of beer cost a penny and a loaf of bread less than a nickel, when a three-room apartment went for five dollars a month and a good pair of shoes for a dollar, Rockefeller had assets of over $800 million (in 1980's buying power, that equates to over $10 billion)! Rockefeller liked to make money. At age 41, he was quoted as saying, "I have ways of making money you know nothing of and later attributed his money-making powers to a gift from God:

I believe the power to make money is a gift from God - just as are the instincts for art, music, literature, the doctor's talent, yours to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow-man according to the dictates of my conscience."

"And make money he did but, his conscience notwithstanding, he became one of the most hated men in the country:

It was more than thirty years since be had begun his career, and Rockefeller was the central figure of the most spectacular success story in business history. The Standard was indisputably the most powerful industrial organization in the nation, and the most visible symbol of growing American might abroad. But for Rockefeller personally the price had been heavy: he had become identified with all the excesses the Standard had committed in its rise to power; hatred clung to him like iron filings to a magnet ... Rockefeller had pursued his leviathan with complete dedication. But now he found himself lashed to its back as inextricably as Ahab, and in equal danger of being taken down for good."

"Rockefeller was excoriated by the organs of public opinion, and was the target of numerous investigating committees. His fortune and holdings were growing faster than he could control or protect them. He needed a special assistant who could both polish up his public image and act as hatchetman in the consolidation of his far-flung business empire."

"Rockefeller, a Baptist, had over the years given sums of money to various Baptist causes. By the late 1880's, the church elders felt bold enough to ask Rockefeller to contribute to the rebuilding of the University of Chicago, a Baptist school founded in 1856 as the Morgan Park Theological Seminary. Acceding to their request, Rockefeller became immersed in the reconstruction of the university, giving to it in 1887 the then-huge sum of $600,000. It was during this involvement with the university that he met Frederick Taylor Gates, a Baptist minister who had previously worked for George A. Pillsbury, founder of the flour empire, in distributing Pillsbury's last philanthropies before his death."

"Rockefeller was impressed by Gates' directness and by the manner in which he handled financial affairs. Constantly besieged by requests for money, Rockefeller asked Gates to work for him and take the burden of philanthropic decisions off his shoulders. Gates was soon handling all requests for Rockefeller money, and doing what he could to polish up the Rockefeller image. He also reorganized Rockefeller's ownership of the great Masabi ore deposits in Minnesota (which provided 60% of the nation's iron ore), buying out the stockholders of personal holdings which were in trouble, and eliminating unprofitable holdings from the Rockefeller portfolio."

"Gates grew frantic, however, at the extent of Rockefeller's financial holdings, and of the threat they contained for Rockefeller: "Your fortune is rolling up, rolling up like an avalanche! You must distribute it faster than it grows! If you do not, it will crush you, and your children, and your children's children. As Gates later recalled:

I trembled as I witnessed the unreasoning popular resentment at Mr. Rockefeller's riches, to the mass of people, a national menace. It was not, however, the unreasoning public prejudice of his vast fortune that chiefly troubled me. Was it to be handed on to posterity as other great fortunes have been handed down by their possessors, with scandalous results to their descendants and powerful tendencies to social demoralization? I saw no other course but for Mr. Rockefeller and his son to form a series of great corporate philanthropies for forwarding civilization in all its elements in this land and all lands; philanthropies, if possible, limitless in time and amount, broad in scope, and self-perpetuating."

Continue with Chapter 6. Molding Hands

Back to Chapter 1. The New Domain - Index Page

Get The Book!

The Leipzig Connection by Paolo Lionni - the complete book with more details & facts about the scam known as modern education and psychology.

Suggested Reading List - the Demise of the Educational System - OBE (Outcome-Based Education), NEA (National Education Association), educational psychology, German psychology & influences, demise of public education, educational sabotage, Wundt, Pavlov, Dewey, Skinner, Watson.