james day: stewartrawlings mott is a philanthropist. nota run-of-the-mill philanthropist, butone whose style and benefaction seem designedto tweak the tilted nose of philanthropy andits conventions. he is decidedly his own man. thesource of his considerable wealth is his late father,charles stewart mott, a pioneer in the generalmotors family, it's largest singlestockholder, and the
patriarch of the cityof flint, michigan. the younger mott not onlychose a lifestyle that contrasted sharply withhis father's, but chose his benefactions withequal deliberateness: peace, populationcontrol, liberal political candidates, and a score oflesser-known but equally liberal causes. hisbachelor quarters in a new york penthouse containswhat is probably the largest vegetableand flower garden in
manhattan, giving him thespace and light to indulge another of his singularinterests. ♪ [theme music] ♪ james day: stewart, do you findwealth a burden, an opportunity, or both? stewart r. mott: hmm. never thought of it very much as a burden, because it provides me with somany opportunities to function and to functionwell. i think that the
social concern that comeswith the wealth can be burdensome. i mean,inasmuch as i -- james day: you mean it'shard to spend money and spend it properly? stewart r. mott:well, that's true. but the fact is that i am soconscientious about it that i wind up putting in10, 12, 14 hour days and don't go away for holidaysnearly as much as i should. james day: what --it's perhaps asilly question, but what do
you do for 10 or 12 hoursa day in order to spend -- or give away money,in this particular case? stewart r. mott: well, typically you'd see me on thetelephone about five or six of those hours, andrummaging through a very deep pile of paper foranother five or six hours, or on a shuttle flight towashington or in a meeting with some of the lawyersand other groups that i work with, both inwashington and new york.
james day: are you besiegedwith requests for gifts? stewart r. mott:well, only in part. but more important to me isthe reading and research that i have to keep upwith in the chosen areas which i'm pursuing. james day: that sounds as though you take the initiativefor the most part. stewart r. mott: well, it'strue. virtually no one who just writes a letter or knockson my door and says, "hey,
stewart mott, i've got agreat project" -- i can't really help those people.i could maybe suggest where they might goseeking assistance, but i find that a lot of peoplehave a mortgage to pay, a child to put throughcollege -- a variety of entirely worthwhilepersonal needs, and then others have their boyscout camp or their hospital research program.it's more than i can cope with, and i really wantto define philanthropy for
myself, and not justbe responsive to other people. james day: thismeans that you have a program of your own.you've outlined -- at least in your own mind, whetherspecifically or only generally -- what you wantto do with that money. stewart r. mott: well, myprogram has evolved in the last 10 or 15 years. iinitially defined the most important areas ofphilanthropic work in the realm of birth control andarms control. and during
the 1960s i directedmyself in that way. lately, in the lastfive years or so, the government has intervenedand provided major funding for internationalpopulation programs. we do have better contraceptiveresearch now, and i feel it's less necessary for anindividual to use a large portion of his wealth forthat purpose. james day: well, traditionallythat's been the rule of philanthropy, hasn't it? to takethe risk, to gamble,
and then to let somebody elsetake over when it gets going. stewart r. mott: especially whenthe program is unpopular and controversial, and whereperhaps it is not a fit arena in which governmentshould function, as indeed in the 1950s andbefore, contraceptives and abortion were deemed bygeneral public opinion to be unworthy of federalsupport, until legislators came around. now hundredsof millions of dollars are being put into thepopulation field. that's
not to say that plannedparenthood doesn't warrant continued support. i'mstill an advocate and i'll still work with plannedparenthood, and do give modestly to it each year.so i want to put in a plug for the organization thati grew up with. but in the last five or six years, mywork has taken a turn more towards the political andgovernmental reform. james day: do you have anyreservations about the power that you can wield?it's certainly beyond what
the average citizen canwield in influencing the kinds of things inwhich he believes. you can influence your ownconvictions with the power of the money that youcan put behind those convictions. isn't thatan awesome kind of power? stewart r. mott: well,it may be, but i think i conduct myself witha certain amount of accountability. i havedisclosed the sources of my wealth and my assets intalk shows like this and
newspaper accounts, andi think that i should be held accountable as apublic figure. if i were sitting behind a screenof assistants and behind closed doors, giving awaymillions of dollars each year without anydisclosure in an anonymous fashion, why then, ithink there should be many people alarmed about thatkind of philanthropy. but i'm very up front aboutit. i try to define for public view what mypriorities are and let
people criticize me if theydisagree, and indeed they do. james day: do youchange? are you affected by criticism in the directions inwhich you might go? stewart r. mott:well, i can't name any one particular example, thoughcertainly i was going against the majoritypublic opinion when i started my advocacy ofabortion reform. and now, lo and behold, themajority opinion has swung in favor of makingabortion available on
demand. so i have tobe sensitive to public opinion; in fact, i'mcurrently subscribing to the roper reports as oneof their clients in order to get a better touch asto what the public thinks. james day: do you operateas a foundation, or as an individual? stewart r. mott: well, i didfunction through a foundation until 1969 when thetax reform act made it rather difficult for a person tofunction freely within the
foundation domain.i find that being able to give directly and personally, i canact a lot more expeditiously than throughfoundation channels. james day: and you'reaccountable only to yourself in that respect,then. not to a board of directors or distributioncommittee or whatever. stewart r. mott:oh, well, that's true. of course,many foundations are so-called "personalfoundations," and the
donor with his secretaryand lawyer manage the foundation. and so thereis no accountability in that, either. but since ihave an annual income of roughly 5 to $600,000 peryear to give away, why -- james day: that's the partyou give away. stewart r. mott: that's right. james day: so there's an additional income thatsupports you and i suppose supports the activity aswell.
stewart r. mott:yes, that's true. my grossincome is on the order of a million to $1.2 millioneach year. and i give away fully 50%, sometimes alittle in excess of that to philanthropicactivities. and then another 100 to $200,000 ayear average for political activities, which is notdeductible. james day: how did you arrive atthat 50%? was that arbitrary on your part?
stewart r. mott: well, that'sthe maximum that is allowable under the tax lawsas a deduction. james day: i see. stewart r. mott: andthen i sometimes go a little bit beyond that because there are certainthings that i especially want to support. and bythe way, it's not through phony giving such as ourpresident has done with his papers, giving themto the archives; i give
tangible assets that canbe used by philanthropy. james day: stewart, when iask you about wealth being a burden or anopportunity, i also thought in terms of someyears ago, when you were growing up, as a veryyoung man. you grew up in the midst of considerablewealth since your father was himself a wealthy man.his wealth was wealth that he himself earned, was henot? he did not inherit from his own father. sothat you're the second
generation, i gather. stewart r. mott: right. james day: was it -- didit in any way dissuade you from what you might'vewished to be as a young man? or was it somethingthat was accepted and you grew up with it, werecomfortable with it? stewart r. mott: well, thepresence of wealth was not excessively felt inmy hometown of flint, michigan. yes, it wasclear that my father was
the wealthiest man intown, and through his foundation -- he had an"edifice complex" and a lot of the buildings therewere named for him. i grew up aware of this, butthere was a lifestyle that was marked with a kindof scottish austerity. my father would turn off theextra lights in the living room, even though wedidn't have an energy crisis then, and woulddrive a small compact car. he had a little bumpersticker, "i love my corvair."
james day: andhe had access, i suppose, to any kind of car hewanted -- stewart r. mott: of course. james day: - asa member of theboard of general motors. stewart r. mott: and he enjoyed driving himself so hedidn't need a chauffeur, and we didn't have abutler waiting upon every need. i learned to dothings for myself, and -- james day: he sought tothat, i suppose. and so
you were raised in anenvironment where you were expected to do much onyour own? stewart r. mott: forspending money, for example, i think i workedin the vegetable garden harvesting peas and then latershelling them for five cents or tencents per hour. and that's the way i had toearn my weekly allowance. james day: were you brought up always with the tacitunderstanding that you
would go into the familybusiness, would inherit the responsibility? or wasit ever, ever thought of? you were one of -- what?six children, i believe. stewart r. mott: that'sright. james day: and one of -- in a sense -- twofamilies. your father was well along in his yearswhen you were born. so it wasn't the kind ofclose-knit family, i suppose, that one normallythinks of?
stewart r. mott: well, it wasthe contrary of what you might expect. i perceived thatthe rockefeller family does quite a good jobof introducing their children, thengrandchildren, into professional philanthropy.in fact, i talked at length with john d.rockefeller iii about this very question of howthe younger generation is trained into it. andthey're often -- those rockefeller kids -- seemto be a little excessively
burdened with the senseof responsibility and conscientious service tothe public. in my family, unfortunately, there wasscarcely any talk of that at all. my father expectedme to be a business man, an engineer, to studypractical things like mechanical engineering,which he studied. and he probably would have beenmost pleased had i decided to go into general motorsor into some corporation of my own choosing andmake my own mark in the
business world, which iswhat he understood best and most admired. itwasn't until i was about 18 or so that i reallybecame aware of the wealth that might be available tome, and to public service as an alternative career,and i decided that someday i wanted to devote myselfto public service. and, rather than just buildingup pile upon pile and creating a biggerfortune, i decided that my responsibility was topreserve what we had and
to see that it wascreatively spent. i don't think you can do bothaltogether successfully, in spending half of one'stime in the business world and half of one's time inthe world of government reform and politicalreform. james day: so it wasn't therejection of the idea of going into business foryourself, but rather a choice ofpublic service. stewart r. mott:well, that's not to say i
wasn't very interested inthe business world, and i -- james day: you did startworking in your father's business when you werequite young, didn't you? stewart r. mott:that's right. i spent many summers in it, and i spenta full year visiting the various corporationsthat are owned by the mott family, and i did mybachelor's degree in business management.presently i manage my own portfolio; i've got a verygood eye for accounting
and the tax laws. and ispent about one or two or three days per monthreviewing the work of my portfolio managers. andi'm fascinated by it, but i just don't want it to be consumingtoo much time in my life. james day: much was made in aprofile about you in new yorker magazineof the differences between you and your father whohas since died. did you ever reconcile thosedifferences? your lifestyles, of course, were quite far apart.
stewart r. mott: i came to the conclusionfinally that they were irreconcilable. he, aconservative republican with a very cautiousbusiness outlook who decided to spend hisphilanthropy in a small town in michigan, whichhas become somewhat gold plated because of thebeneficence of the mott foundation. and i, incontrast, a liberal democrat who has beenseeking out the business
ventures that arehigh-risk and high-yield, and where my philanthropyis maybe shooting pebbles into a huge pond, butin trying to correct the population problem andslow down the arms race. i think that there is nogreater problem facing this world, and my modestannual contribution in these arenas can only go alittle way toward solving the problems, but they'redollars spent a lot more cost-effectively than gildingthe lily in flint, michigan.
james day:were you ever conscious of deliberately building alifestyle, a political conviction, that wasopposite to your father's, as any young personmight do? just because his father stood here, hewanted to stand there? or were there other forcesand influences on your life that caused youto become the liberal democrat, rather thanconservative republican? stewart r. mott: well,sure there were other
influences, and atimportant moments of my life i met norman thomasand roger baldwin and allen guttmacher, andernest gruening. james day: not through yourfather, i gather. stewart r. mott: no. but i thinki was already moving in that direction on my own. ican't say exactly why. for a period, from age 18 to25, i did my best to try to get interested in theflint program, and at one point i even told myfather, "look, give me a
chance to work with youhere in your foundation in flint, and let me work asa consultant, a management analyst, and go around tothe different aspects of the program and see wherei can identify ways in which the dollarscan go farther, a cost-effectiveness study."and unfortunately he turned me down on theoffer. he said that he thought i should go pursuemy own field. and i think, basically, he said thatbecause he didn't want any
flak from me, any backtalktelling him that he was, perhaps, not spendinghis money as well and as effectively as he could. james day: he didn'tsuspect that your interest in what you call public servicewas the avoidance of work? stewart r. mott: goodgrief, i should hope not. stewart r. mott: imean, we didn't have much contact with each otherin the last four or five years, but during mytwenties, my lifestyle was
such that i was working12, 14 hour days. when i visited the companies thatwe control, i was -- for example -- at thedepartment stores in michigan, staying atthe stores until the 9:00 closing, countingthe tapes to see what departments produced howmuch each day, and then going home and readingwomen's wear daily and home furnishings dailybefore falling asleep. james day: stewart, whenyou were 20 years old, you
made a trip to southeurope and then to asia that seems to have hadsome influence on you too. you've said -- or quoted,again, in the new yorker profile as saying it wasthe freest time, or the first time in your lifeyou felt truly free. you were on your own,traveling -- i guess almost living by your wits insome respects, were you not? stewart r. mott:well, i took that year off between what was supposedto be my junior year and
senior year at college,and made it around the world on a total budgetof $1500 and a simple knapsack and satchel.the freest moment came, i think, when i had sold thecar i had bought in europe and i was heading outacross the eastern desert of iran, and had just lefttehran. all i had were my knapsack and satchel and$50 in my pocket and a map that stretched onlyhalfway across the persian desert. and i knew about50 words of the language,
and i knew generally thatafghanistan was over that direction somewhere, andi wanted to visit this country which waslegendary, supposedly 300 years behind the rest ofthe world. and i sat there for an hour on the mainhighway leading east and not a single vehiclepassed. and i felt a tremendous sense ofadventure. i was 20 years old at the time, and iknew that i'd be coming back to the unitedstates and back to
responsibilities, but ihad fully a year ahead of me for that kind oflife. james day: so youdiscovered something about yourself in thatprocess, i suppose. stewart r. mott: yes. for one, i realized that peopleshould go through a rather radical change of lifeevery six or seven years and not just continuedoing the routine motions over and over again.and in a way i did take
another sabbatical in 1971for about six months. i decided i had absolutelyhad it with the telephones and the daily flow ofpapers here in new york, and i shut it all out anddecided that i would spend the following six monthsin gardening. and in fact did. i studied the seedcatalogs and poked the seeds into the seed flatsand learned just how to tend vegetables andflowers, and developed what i immodestly wouldlike to call new york's
most extensive penthousefarm, including chickens for fresh eggs daily. james day: and you're in the process of building amagnificent new penthouse farm -- it's going to costover a million dollars -- that'll allow you to doeven more farming on top of this newly constructedpenthouse, i gather. stewart r. mott: well, byabout the summer of 1975 i hope to have a uniquepenthouse arrangement
where my philanthropicoffice and my home will be merged into one location.the new penthouse will be heliotropically orientedwith a -- james day: turning toward thesun. stewart r. mott: yes.with an eye to having the planting arrangement insuch a fashion that every plant gets the kind oflight that it needs. hard to do in anexisting penthouse. james day:what's the passion for plants?
stewart r. mott:well, it's -- as ralph nader told me recently,my attempt to have nature defy the laws of man herein manhattan. it's to, in effect, demonstrate thatmanhattan can be livable, and to bring the countryinto the city instead of vice versa. i'd rather nothave a second home out in east hampton or somewherewith the two hours on the expressway back and forthevery weekend. i'd rather have the jungle-likeexperience surrounding me
in the city. i'd also likeit to be a place where young people can come tovisit. i'd like to be able to bring in school groups,maybe once a week, and show the kids from harlemand brownsville what it's like to grow a turnip or acarrot or a tomato. many of them have never seen atomato vine. james day: it may onlyprove what most of us have known for some time,stewart, which is that manhattan is livable,if you've got the money.
stewart r. mott: well, i'dlike to demonstrate that you don't have to have all that much money, either.because part of my garden is what i call a freegarden. it's a section where i'm using woodencrates and discarded automobile tires, largetomato cans, tins, and the like, and i'm compostingall of the droppings from the kitchen, all therecyclable organic material. and through thecompost pile i see each
spring plantsvolunteering, just springing up, like froma tomato seed that was discarded. and you don'teven have to spend 15 cents for a package ofseed in doing this. and i'd like to demonstratevisually, physically, that people can have rooftopgardens at zero expense. and everybody has arooftop. i think rooftops are the most wasted partof manhattan real estate, and each one of them couldbe a mini-paradise, a
vegetable patch everysummer. james day: i wanted to ask youabout another of your interests: peace. you've beeninterested in peace, so i am told, from a very earlyage, and at the point where you could do soyou became a conscientious objector. now you spendsome of your money in the cause for peace. stewart r. mott:well, it's true. and about age 19 or 20when i first had a rifle
thrust in my hand atthe rotc class of mit, i recoiled, and determinedthat if i were ever up for conscription, that i wouldbe a co. i got alarmed about the drift of theamerican involvement in vietnam back in 1965 andcalled one of our first town hall meetings inflint, michigan, on the subject. unfortunately i-- well, i came across the flyer for that town hallmeeting recently and i realized that many of thesame, identical questions
that were raised in'65 were still left unanswered, even today.and yes, i help to finance the vietnam protestmovement, the moratorium. i worked in genemccarthy's campaign and subsequently with georgemcgovern, and have come to the conclusion graduallythat the only way to accomplish substantialpolitical reform is to spend an enormousamount of time working on campaigns for candidatesof the right type.
james day: how do you feel aboutpersons like yourself giving large amountsof money to political campaigns? do you thinkthis is the proper way to finance politicalcampaigns? stewart r. mott: i think it'sentirely appropriate so long as it's adequatelydisclosed. i think our disclosure laws should gofarther than what they do. i think that those whodecide to give in excess of, say, $3,000 should beobliged to make a full and
appropriate financialstatement indicating in what ways they personallyor companies they control have dealings withthe federal government, whether they are subjectto regulation via any of the various commissions,whether they are subject to any act of congress,such as in the price of milk. then, let peoplegive what they see fit, let them giveextravagantly and excessively -- james day: with no upper limits?
stewart r. mott: - and letthe candidate spend money foolishly if he or she sochooses. but i don't think there should be anartificial limit, either on the amount that anindividual can give, nor on the amount that acandidate can spend. but i think we also need publicfinancing. and the most attractive formula thathas been proposed thus far is the [ph] eudol andersonformula which provides for matching monies from thefederal till to up to the
first $50 that each donorgives, so that a person who is getting his or hercampaign with just small gifts will have a chanceto get started, and it's not entirely reliant uponthe fat cat donor. james day: stewart, one finalquestion, very brief. many of our guests havebeen concerned with the necessity, sometimes thedifficulty, of defining themselves. have you cometo the point where you know who you are?
have you gotten aself-definition for yourself? stewart r. mott: in a single word, i look upon myself as amaverick. james day: is that akind of profession? stewart r. mott: no, that's a cow that ran freein texas and oklahoma that belonged to a colonelmaverick back in the last century, and he refusedto brand his calves. and i refuse to be brandedmyself. though i call
myself a liberal democratand a philanthropist and a social activist, i really wouldprefer to go without label. james day:thank you very much.
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