1. Paul wrote:

        I don’t know why I seemed o be just standing by; I am very much interested in the Fund, and I have – as is usual with me – mixed emotions.  (It has been a part of my life for  much longer than anyone else who is still alive.  And my “interest” has been quite strong since I first became its custodian.  I have also probably expressed some of my opinions to some of the trustees, but not to all. (No attempt to withhold anything; I’ll try to summarize all.)  First, I am proud of my father!  The creation of this fund, in 1924, is an overwhelming action.  He had four children and a rather odd government job.  (I don’t know who really sponsored the idea of the United States Code, bust I have the impression that my father was about the only person who actually worked (full-time) on the idea.  The congressional supporters needed someone like him to explain and demonstrate what they were advocating.  I think he worked in the Capitol building, perhaps in something called the Congressional Law Library.  Anyway I’m sure it was an “unusual” job – and therefore a risky one. (here may always be scandals in the legislative appropriations are passed each year, but cost at the fringes are never secure.  I don’t know what, if anything, he had done to support the candidacy of Lafollette, but, after the election, he did not just give up.  He thought of a long-term hope for better election results, and realized that even a small acorn an turn into a large oak tree. He fund he created was a very small acorn, but he (and my mother?) nurtured it, and tried to do worth-while things with the small contributions they made each year.  He wrote a comprehensive set of rules for the fund   -- a better job than those done in recent times by many politically oriented organizations these days.  I’m impressed now when I read what he wrote so long ago, and the ideas he expressed and supported.  But even more impressive was his decision to turn it all over o a younger person.  (He said that it had been founded with young ideas and he wanted  the thinking to stay young.  I did not feel competent to represent him, but I tried.  Then I went into the U.S. Army and he resumed the management of the fund. (I have never looked back to study those few years.)  Kay and I got married soon after I got out of the military service, and she and I both tried to represent what we understood of his spirit. (I don’t think we consulted with him – trying to recognize his aim for younger ideas.  I AM STILL VERY MUCH IMPRESSED BY HIS DECISION TO GIVE UP THE FUND, WHICH HE HAD NURTURED INTO A SIGNIFICAN INVESTMENT, BUT WAS WILLING TO GIVE IT UP TO A PERSON AS POORLY QUALIFIED AS it WAS.  He really did believe in the principles he had expressed so well about 20 years earlier.  Think of it!  A fund hats he had started and managed (through some serious financial problems) and had established it as a source of annual contributions to worthy causes –and he gave it all away in order to keep it responsive to “current” situations with ”current” thoughts! (All right. I am very much impressed!)  He wanted “progress” probably of  “socialist”  principles, but he wanted “current” thinking.  He even thought that any socialist ”revolution “might take over the government, but might then be swept back out of power .  He wrote an instruction the forbid support of the established situation against any proposed( revolutionary?) change.  But he was willing to fight, if necessary to hold the gains that had been put into effect  by any ‘progressive’ revolution, and his rules allowed temporary efforts to maintain the progress that had (at least temporarily) been won.  (The ability to be “the government.”)  A careful reading of his words led to the feeling that the Fund should  not support most of the then-current attempts to improve our environment.  I continue to feel that my father would have supported some proposed legislation designed to control  s some profit-seeking practices that damage our air and water.  (If we decide to rewrite any of the bylaws, I’ll hope we can get more freedom to consider the public benefit that might result from some stricter environmental controls.  Progress of various sorts can be sought by trying to educate the population.  It is, however, often more effective to influence the government more directly.  My father, having spent most of his career dealing with legislative actions, realized the importance of legislative action, and his “Fund” expected to support what might well be called “lobbying” in favor of proposed legislative changes for the benefit of the citizens.  

It is now Saturday morning, the first of December, and it would take me the rest of today to finish what I feel like writing, but I’ve dealt with some of the main points.  I guess that I also feel that we should not care about any tax benefit to our  contributor to our Fund.  So I would prefer that we use the money in the Special Endowment, only where this is no ability to give the same amount  from the General Endowment.  If the Special Endowment does not earn, with its investments, as much as the Internal Revenue Service ask, let’s sell investments and give enough to qualify.  If we receive eligible contributions from contributors, fine; if not, the  Special Endowment will shrink, but will continue to support worthy causes.  I feel that the Fund my father founded would tend to supports small organizations that were trying to support a kind of progress that was not already being supported .  I’ll be glad to try to participate in any discussion about the purposes of the Fund, but as you can see, I don’t do very well with typing my thoughts.

2. David wrote:

I thank you very much for not only your thoughts, but your understanding of your fathers thoughts. 

Most of us have opinions and I suspect most of us think our opinions are "the correct opinion". It is most appropriate in this case to remember that Walter's opinions, as set forth, are the Funds directions. As Trustees it should be our obligation to implement his directives as best we can. 

3. Bob wrote:

I have a few comments.

3.1 The Fund and the Environment

The first concerns the Fund and most environmental organizations. Paul wrote:

A careful reading of his words led to the feeling that the Fund should  not support most of the then-current attempts to improve our environment.  I continue to feel that my father would have supported some proposed legislation designed to control  s some profit-seeking practices that damage our air and water.  (If we decide to rewrite any of the bylaws, I’ll hope we can get more freedom to consider the public benefit that might result from some stricter environmental controls.  Progress of various sorts can be sought by trying to educate the population.  It is, however, often more effective to influence the government more directly. 

The real issue is not the bylaws, which reflect the charter, but the charter, and the 1924 original rules, which the charter reflects. The 1924 rule that is normally seen as preventing contributions to environmental organizations was written in very strong language, even stronger than most of the other rules about what could not be supported. Rule II.E1 states:

In no case are donations to be made … for the purpose of preventing any change in social, industrial or political conditions, no matter how undesirable such change may appear to be. This paragraph should be given the broadest possible interpretation, and in no circumstances be varied from, to any extent whatever. But where donations from the fund have been made to assist in the accomplishment of a particular object, which becomes eventually established, for a limited period thereafter donations may be made for the purpose of preventing a return to the former conditions.

I asked him what he had meant by “a limited period” and he said that he had meant approximately two years.

He then wrote, as Rule III-B:

Whenever the custodian may wish … to have the fund administered under a corporate form of organization, it is my desire that the discretion of the trustees or managers be sufficiently broad to permit such modification of the details of the above specifications as may be necessary in order to take account of future changes in social, industrial and political conditions; but in no case should they be permitted to disregard paragraphs (1) and (2) under subdivision E of section II.

That is, we are bound by rule II.E1. It would be disrespectful and insulting to ease it. The problem is that most “environmental” organizations are multi-focused and include “conservation” in their objectives. Rule II.E1 does not prohibit the General Endowment from supporting lobbying for strengthening of the Clean Air Acts and Clean Water Acts, nor does it prohibit the Special Endowment from supporting public education on the need for strengthening the Clean Air Acts and Clean Water Acts. However, many organizations that lobby for stricter pollution laws also lobby for conservation. It does prohibit supporting lobbying against weakening the Clean Air Acts (e.g., in order to facilitate more electricity from old-tech coal-fired power plants), since those acts were enacted a few decades ago. It does, in my opinion, prohibit supporting lobbying regarding the Endangered Species Acts, because extinction of animals is an undesirable change.

The real problem is that most environmental organizations are not specifically lobbying to control pollution. Increased control of pollution would be an improvement in conditions, but environmental preservation as such is an effort to avoid worsening of conditions. That is why we have to be very careful about environmental organizations. If they are exclusively working to improve the environment, that is positive change, but if they are working to avoid its degradation, then Rule II.E1 applies, and it is very clearly worded.

3.2 The Special Endowment

Paul wrote:

So I would prefer that we use the money in the Special Endowment, only where this is no ability to give the same amount  from the General Endowment.  If the Special Endowment does not earn, with its investments, as much as the Internal Revenue Service ask, let’s sell investments and give enough to qualify.  If we receive eligible contributions from contributors, fine; if not, the  Special Endowment will shrink, but will continue to support worthy causes. 

I think that I partly disagree. First, as to only using the Special Endowment when there is no ability to give the same money from the General Endowment, that is usually the case. The Special Endowment has more money than the General Endowment. I would prefer to turn the rule around, and use money from the General Endowment for purposes that the Special Endowment is not permitted to support, such as lobbying. Second, I disagree with Paul’s comment that the Special Endowment may shrink if it isn’t replenished with new contributions. The IRS requires that it contribute 5% of its income based on the presumption that its investments will earn 5%. The problem has been that it doesn’t receive 5% of the value of its investments in dividends, because stocks and mutual funds do not pay large enough dividends, because they focus too much on growth. (I think that the tax code should be changed to encourage companies and funds to pay dividends rather than to grow.) If the Special Endowment does not earn enough in dividends to pay the required contributions, we will be required to sell investments, but that will not draw down the corpus of the Special Endowment, but will convert growth into cash. At least, that analysis applies if stocks gain at least 5% in value over a period of decades, and that is the usual rule over a period of decades.

3.3 The Bylaws and the Charter

As I mentioned above, some of the provisions in the bylaws that either permit or prohibit types of contributions reflect rules in the charter. My recollection is that when the bylaws were revised in around 1980 to define the current grant approval process, we decided to have all of the rules in the charter reflected in the bylaws so that a trustee evaluating an organization would only have to look in one place, in the bylaws. I am not sure whether that was really a good idea, at least as the bylaws were written. The reason is that sometimes the bylaws summarize what the charter says rather than fully restating it, especially when the charter rule is detailed and precise. The rules in the charter are detailed and precise when the 1924 rules were detailed and precise.

For instance, section 6G1 of the charter states:

In no case are contributions to be made by the Fund for the purpose of preventing any change in economic, social, industrial, or political conditions, no matter how undesirable such change may appear to be. This paragraph is to be given the broadest possible interpretation, and in no circumstances is any variation to be permitted from it to any extent whatever, except that where donations from the Fund have been made to assist in the accomplishment of a particular object, which becomes eventually established, donations may be made for a limited period thereafter (such as two years) for the purpose of preventing a return to the former conditions.

That is an almost verbatim restatement of the 1924 Rule II.E1 (above).

Bylaw 6F8 states:

No contributions shall be made from the General Endowment or the Special Endowment for … resistance to change (including most `ecology' and `environmental' groups).

I don’t think that has the clarity or force of Rule II.E1 or section 6G1. As a result, it isn’t really true that a trustee evaluating an organization only has to look in the bylaws. He or she doesn’t have to look in the 1924 rules, because the 1976 rules in the charter are a complete restatement of the 1924 rules, but the bylaws are not a complete restatement of the charter. If we choose to revise the bylaws, we could revise Bylaw 6F8 to read:

No contributions shall be made from the General Endowment or the Special Endowment for … resistance to change, as defined more completely in section 6G1 of the Articles of Incorporation.

4. Chuck wrote:

My daughter Lee is an advocate for Environmental Justice.  I don't have a clean definition of it, , but I would say that it takes in concern for people adversely affected by environmental change, and the mitigation of their situations.  An example would be communities near strip-mining sites.

So, firstly, there are ways we can respond to environmental issues within the scope of the charter, and secondly we should nominate Lee as a trustee; I expect she'll be happy to serve and advocate.

5.

I would agree with Chuck’s analysis that having one’s home or land fouled by the tailings from strip mining would be a special disadvantage (as per charter section 3A).

I had been hoping that Lee would serve as a trustee, and welcome her nomination.

6. Lee wrote:

Hi Everyone,

This is interesting!

First, my dad wrote on environmental justice that

"it takes in concern for people adversely affected by environmental change, and the mitigation of their situations.  An example would be communities near strip-mining sites."

Yes, and it goes one step further. Environmental Justice is the idea that just as we strive to protect the political rights of people regardless of race, gender, income etc so should we with people's access to a safe and usable environment. In our country it tends to be that because well-off communities are able to lobby away hazards (a principle called "not in my back yard), destructive practices often end up neighboring invisible and marginalized communities. 

In Appalachia, perhaps America's most longstanding stronghold of poverty, mountain top removal coal mining not only tears down forests (going against "conservation") but also poisons the well water of towns, cuts job opportunities and exploits the generations-old land holdings of people there. 

A PA town near me, Chester, has a sewage incinerator, trash incinerator, a paper mill, a concrete factory, several toxic waste sites and chemical plants. The town is mostly black. In Delaware county, where the town is, race is the most correlating factor in the distribution of toxic air pollutants. These are just two examples.

Is "conservation" of the environment an act to prevent change in social, industrial or political conditions? I'm not sure of the technicalities of the fund's charter (I'd like to be sent a copy?), but in my opinion because the prevalent trend in our society is to harm our environments, conservation is actually a CHANGE in condition, not an act against change. In the early years of the 1900s conservation was a philosophy fearing the new changes of industrialization  But now industrialization and its effects is our order and has been for decades. I would say that preservation is against that order. 

I would say that fighting strip mining, although it may include the preservation of several mountaintops, is about changing social order. It is evident that the fossil fuel industry and other perpetrators currently have quite a hold on us all (not just marginalized communities, but especially them), and so fighting that destruction is indeed going against current order, not for it. The same may be true for endangered species then. Preserving biodiversity bucks the current trend, if we take this approach. Yes, but it could be agreed that there are simply better, more important things to fight for than tigers (as cute as they are). In this way "pure conservation of the environment", which may include protecting species and national parks can fall second to "preventing harm to people via the destruction of environmental rights to clean air, water, food and safe living conditions" simply because of a choice to make it so, rather than a restriction by the charter. 

I'd want to read over the charter and bylaws before I accepted a nomination. 

- - Bob