Columbia Law School and works for Pan Am
0f 90 Park Ave., NY
Estate valued at $15,522,705 at time of death. New Yrok Times 1 March 1928 Page 25.
A History of the Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation
Cleveland Hoadley Dodge established this foundation in the spring of 1917, when the United States entered World War I. It had an original funding of five million dollars. Dodge was an official of the Phelps Dodge Corporation, founded in 1832 by his great-grandfather, Anson Phelps, and his grandfather, William E. Dodge. Phelps Dodge was a leading copper mining corporation, and as such, its product was in great demand for making armaments. Therefore, in 1917 its profits had soared. Dodge was determined, as he wrote to his Presbyterian pastor, that "I will not burn my pockets by keeping a cent of the money coming to me from war profits." He set up the Foundation with the very general proviso that its income should be used "for the betterment of mankind", but precluded giving to health care and medical research organizations, since he felt that money for these was "already available from other sources."
Cleveland H. Dodge Foundation
He attended the Princeton University (in 1879).
Phelps Dodge President Member of the Board of National City Columbia Bank Director Farmer's Loan & Trust Director (later Citibank) Young Men's Christian Association, President
A long, courtly document, written out in longhand on glazed paper, was recently filed in a Manhattan court—the last Will and Testament of the late Cleveland H. Dodge, financier, philanthropist. During his lifetime he gave away $40,000,000, mostly to religious causes. He backed Woodrow Wilson in his last two campaigns. An official of the Y. M. C. A., asked for an estimate of his contributions, gasped: "Why, it would take weeks to get those figures together. . . ." Religious foundations had waited expectantly for the will to be filed. If alive he gave such vast sums to God, what would he not give dead? The Will made answer: "Following the example of my dear father, and believing it wiser to give liberally during my life to religious and charitable objects, I make no bequest of that character. . . . "Whereas my honored and revered great-grandfather, Anson G. Phelps, bequeathed to my father $5,000 . . . the income therefrom to be devoted to the spread of the Gospel and to promote the Kingdom of the Redeemer on Earth . . . I bequeath the said sum of $5,000 to my son, Cleveland Earl Dodge ... to be sacredly appropriated as was directed in my grandfather's will. . . ." The rest of his fortune he left to his family, friends, and servants. His elder son, Bayard Dodge, is President of the American University in Beirut, Syria, which began as a missionary enterprise and to which the late Mr. Dodge gave much. $20,000,000 was the estimated value of the estate.
Time Magazine 9 Aug. 1926
Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, dead 18 months, lived again last week for 600 men and women who attended a banquet in Manhattan for the benefit of the six U. S. colleges in the Near East. Those colleges are Robert College of Constantinople and Constantinople Woman's College, the American University of Beirut, the International College at Smyrna, Athens College and Sofia American Schools Inc. of Samokov in Bulgaria. They have 2,838 students, from every nationality along the eastern Mediterranean littoral and in the Asia Minor hinterland. Also, U. S. and English students attend them.
Christian missionaries founded or fostered those six colleges. Funds came chiefly from U. S. rich men. But not sufficient funds for the ever widening activities of the colleges. They now need $15,000,000 endowment, had until last week accumulated $6,000,000. Then the Rockefeller Foundation gave $1,000,000. The estate of Charles M. Hall, who died in 1914 after growing wealthy from his process of manufacturing aluminum, gave another. Previously his estate had given two millions. Thus a need for seven millions more remains. Were Cleveland Hoadley Dodge alive he would have led the endowment campaign. All his life, as did his ancestors, the Dodges (religion and education) and the Phelpses (copper mining), he gave liberally to religious and charitable institutions. During the War he organized the Near East Relief. Solicitors who asked money for it could say: "One hundred cents of every dollar go for relief-none for expenses, which are met privately." That was because Cleveland Hoadley Dodge paid all expenses personally, besides donating largely.
Rich men tend to study some one field of philanthropy and to it give their money and energies. Mr. Dodge's field was preeminently the Near East. He was President of the Board of Trustees of Robert College. His daughter Elizabeth Wainwright Dodge married Professor George Herbert Huntington of Robert College. His son Bayard Dodge is president of the American University. Bayard Dodge's twin brother Cleveland Earl Dodge supervises the family finances, administers its philanthropies. The Dodge family might have given the seven millions that the Near East colleges yet need for endowment. Arthur Curtiss James, reputedly the owner of more railroad securities than any other man, who attended last week's dinner, might have given the sum. Or Banker William Morgan Kingsley, or any of a dozen other persons there. But the colleges are a broad U. S. activity. Their Eurasian students want the moral support of widespread U. S. interest. Their teachers want thousands, not 600 persons, backing the schools. Therefore the committees are making nation-wide the appeal for the $7,000,000.
Time Magazine 12 December 1929