A Remembrance of Lawson Purdy

Albert Pleydell

[Reprinted from the Henry George News, October, 1959]

MY earliest memories of Mr. Purdy go back to when I was about five years old and my father brought me from Plainfield, New Jersey, to meet his friend and associate. The picture is pretty hazy, of course, consisting chiefly of recalling my fright at the loud noises and flashing lights of my first subway ride. However, only a few years ago, Mr. Purdy was amazed and delighted when I was able to describe in a very sketchy way his library of 1910.

There were other visits during my childhood school years. He and my father worked together on many projects, and it was only natural that I became an occasional visitor. But it wasn't until school days were over and I was working in New York that I came to develop a close friendship with Mr. Purdy that endured until his recent death. One early incident I shall always cherish as being typical of his clear thinking and his great ability to sense major public problems long before they were generally recognized. In the fall of 1932, I was assigned the task of forecasting the probable annual cost of relief that the city would soon be facing. At this time the city was spending about $10,000,000 a year for this purpose. Private philanthropy was struggling with a superhuman load. New York; had no emergency home relief program. There was no state aid for relief. The Federal Civil Works Administration was a year off.

I turned to Mr. Purdy for counsel, since at that time he was the head of the Charity Organization Society. He welcomed the opportunity to express his own convictions on what he believed was inevitable. He said that government would have to assume the responsibility for the relief of the destitute. When I turned in my report, it met with a great deal of scepticism, because Mr. Purdy had persuaded me to project the city's relief costs as "exceeding $100,000,000 a year." At that time no one could foresee the great extent to which the as yet unelected Roosevelt administration would pour Federal money into the local relief situation. But Mr. Purdy knew that government would have to step in, although he naturally thought it would be the city government. His prediction - fantastic for 1932 - soon proved to be ultraconservative when, two years later, relief costs exceeded $250,000,000 of which the share for New York was close to $100,000,000.

In 1934 I was recommended by Mr. Purdy for membership on the Board of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, to succeed my father, who had died two years before. Thus began a working partnership that continued for over 25 years. This is not the place to tell the history of Mr. Purdy's leadership of the Foundation. But there is one little story that I think illustrates both his devotion to the Foundation and his confidence and belief in people.

In those days, the Foundation owned a number of first mortgages on small homes. Many defaults were occurring. Our service agency urged us to follow the lead of the banks and foreclosure. Mr. Purdy objected, saying he was sure that if the mortgagees were given an incentive to save their homes, they would do so. Thus we would continue to hold sound mortgages and the people would still own their homes. He proposed that we offer to convert a portion of the interest charges into amortization payments. This was done. In almost every instance, the offer was gladly accepted, and the owners saved their homes.

All through these years, Mr. Purdy was a tower of strength. He was also our one remaining link with Mr. Schalkenbach, being the last of those named as trustees in the will. Now he is gone, but because he was with us, and gave so much of himself to our cause, we who remain can face the future with assurance that the Foundation will move forward along the path he charted.