Tuesday, May 08, 2007

George Peabody and Ebenezer Scrooge

George Peabody and Ebenezer Scrooge


Several years before the Civil War, or when young John D. Rockefeller was busy in job hunting, George Peabody invited Junius Morgan to London as a junior partner of his financial business mainly dealing with bonds issued by various states and the federal government of the U.S.

George Peabody made a big success in London through maintaining good relationships with the British noble people and financial cliques such as Rothschild.

In London, in 1843, Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol," a story of an old and greedy financier named Ebenezer Scrooge who nonetheless one night before Christmas repented of his way of living as a greedy financier. Ebenezer Scrooge became a nice donor to the poor and died in peace.

Most interestingly, George Peabody became another Ebenezer Scrooge especially when he stepped down and handed over his business to Morgan around the Civil War period.

"...Horrified by the devastation of the South after the American Civil War, George Peabody made his single largest benefaction, The Southern Education Fund, to establish a public education system for the Southern states. Astonishingly for that era, Peabody insisted on providing educational opportunities for both races. A teacher’s training college in Nashville, now part of Vanderbilt University, bears his name..." (http://www.peabody.org.uk/FileStore/PressRoom/downloads/GeorgePeabodyfactsheet.pdf)

A story that a terrible miser turned out to be a great benefactor may be akin to the story of Saul or St. Paul 2000 years ago.

However, I just want to add some here.
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George Peabody was a very stingy man, according to "The House of Morgan" by Ron Chernow.

But, it could be regarded as his having avoided giving pearls and jewels to dogs and pigs.

Though it is still an enigma how he regarded his wife not legally married, it is reported that this lady and her daughter were cut out of Peabody's will.

He also declined in receiving an honorable title from Queen Victoria who sent her customized picture, in lieu of baronetage, to Peabody in his bed of sickness.
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It is said that social situation and spiritual landscape of the U.S. changed drastically after the Civil War.

Indeed, the era of Morgan and Rockefeller came, and the memory of the war between Britain and the United States in 1812 which George Peabody at 17 years old had joined was to be superseded by a series of more aggressive wars against Native Americans, Spain, Mexico, and Asia-Pacific people.

While advancing this way from the 19th century to the 21st century, if the U.S. could ever be regarded and appraised highly, it is due to Christianity extended the way that could not be observed in Europe.

And, I think George Peabody, who never gave pearls and jewels to dogs and pigs, contributed some to this movement.
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You may say that justice might have been done in the Civil War, which built a mind-set of American people in succeeding years and a century.

And further through the Great Depression, the Pearl Harbor Attack, the JFK Assassination, and the 9/11 Terror Attacks, the American mind-set seems to have been hardened or hard-boiled.

But, on each drastic event, you need another George Peabody who never gives pearls and jewels to dogs and pigs but wishes to die in peace as a great benefactor; otherwise, the U.S. may be regarded as a country of dogs and pigs by its enemy who is looking for reasons to mobilize youths for a so-called holy war.


(Anyway, good girls in the world, mind is first, and money next. And, your beauty should be from mind not from money you have. If you put money between your mind and beauty, it will eventually harm the both. Now, you be poor and beautiful!)


"PERFORM YOUR HOLY DUTY AS A SERVANT OF GOD"