OPINION

Zuckerberg's charity bid an age-old theme

News, Published on 09/12/2015

» When steel magnate Andrew Carnegie tried to get Pennsylvania towns to build public libraries in the 1890s by offering them matching funds, 20 of the 46 local governments he approached turned him down. When John D Rockefeller Sr asked Congress to grant a federal charter for his proposed Rockefeller Foundation in 1910, then Attorney General George W Wickersham denounced it as "an indefinite scheme for perpetuating vast wealth" that was "entirely inconsistent with the public interest". In 1925, the regents of the University of Wisconsin voted to reject all contributions from private foundations.