The Naked Capitalist

  The Perpetuation Of the Secret Society After Rhodes’ Death

  “This group was able to get access to Rhodes’ money after his death in 1902 and also to the funds of loyal Rhodes supporters like Alfred Beit (1853-1906) and Sir Abe Bailey (1864-1940). With this backing they sought to extend and execute the ideals that Rhodes had obtained from Ruskin and Stead. Milner was the chief Rhodes Trustee and Parkin was Organizing Secretary of the Rhodes Trust after 1902, while Gell and Birchenough, as well as others with similar ideas, became officials of the British South Africa Company. They were joined in their efforts by other Ruskinite friends of Stead’s like Lord Grey, Lord Esher, and Flora Shaw (later Lady Lugard). In 1890, by a stratagem too elaborate to describe here, Miss Shaw became Head of the Colonial Department of The Times while still remaining on the Payroll of Stead’s Pall Mall Gazette. In this post she played a major role in the next ten years in carrying into execution the imperial schemes of Cecil Rhodes, to whom Stead had introduced her in 1889.”10

  The Secret Society Was Gradually Extended Into Other Countries

  “As governor-general and high commissioner of South Africa in the period 1897-1905, Milner recruited a group of young men, chiefly from Oxford and from Toynbee Hall, to assist him in organizing his administration. Through his influence these men were able to win influential posts in government and international finance and became the dominant influence in British imperial and foreign affairs up to 1939. Under Milner in South Africa, they were known as Milner’s Kindergarten until 1910.

  In 1909-1913 they organized semi-secret groups, known as Round Table Groups, in the chief British dependencies and in the United States. These still function in eight countries. They kept in touch with each other by personal correspondence and frequent visits, and through an influential quarterly magazine, The Round Table, founded in 1910 and largely supported by Sir Abe Bailey’s money. In 1919 they founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) for which the chief financial supporters were Sir Abe Bailey and the Astor family (owners of The Times).”11

  Forming Of the Council On Foreign Relations and the Institute Of Pacific Relations

  “Similar Institutes of International Affairs were established in the chief British dominions and in the United States (where it is known as the Council on Foreign Relations) in the period 1919-1927. After 1925 a somewhat similar structure of organizations, known as the Institute of Pacific Relations, was set up in twelve countries holding territory in the Pacific area, the units in each British dominion existing on an interlocking basis with the Round Table Group and the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the same country.

  In Canada the nucleus of this group consisted of Milner’s undergraduate friends at Oxford (such as Arthur Glazebrook and George Parkin), while in South Africa and India the nucleus was made up of former members of Milner’s Kindergarten. These included (Sir) Patrick Duncan, B.K. Long, Richard Feetham and (Sir) Dougal Malcolm in South Africa and (Sir) William Marris, James (Lord) Meston, and their friend Malcolm (Lord) Hailey in India. The groups in Australia and New Zealand had been recruited by Stead (through his magazine The Review of Reviews) as early as 1890-1893; by Parkin, at Milner’s instigation, in the period 1889-1910, and by Lionel Curtis, also at Milner’s request, in 1910-1919.”12

  How the Secret Society Gained Massive Influence in the British Government, the British Press and the British Universities

  “The power and influence of this Rhodes-Milner group in British imperial affairs and in foreign policy since 1889, although not widely recognized, can hardly be exaggerated. We might mention as an example that this group dominated The Times from 1890 to 1912 and has controlled it completely since 1912 (except for the years 1919-1922). Because The Times has been owned by the Astor family since 1922, this Rhodes-Milner group was sometimes spoken of as the ‘Cliveden Set,’ named after the Astor country house where they sometimes assembled. Numerous other papers and journals have been under the control or influence of this group since 1889.

  They have also established and influenced numerous university and other chairs of imperial affairs and international relations. Some of these are the Beit chairs at Oxford, the Montague Burton chair at Oxford, the Rhodes chair at London, the Stevenson chair at Chatham House, the Wilson chair at Aberystwyth, and others, as well as such important sources of influence as Rhodes House at Oxford.”13

  The Proposal to Have the Capital Of the World Federation in the United States

  “From 1884 to about 1915 the members of this group worked valiantly to extend the British Empire and to organize it in a federal system. They were constantly harping on the lessons to be learned from the failure of the American Revolution and the success of the Canadian federation of 1867, and hoped to federate the various parts of the empire as seemed feasible, then confederate the whole of it, with the United Kingdom into a single organization. They also hoped to bring the United States into this organization to whatever degree was possible. Stead was able to get Rhodes to accept, in principle, a solution which might have made Washington the capital of the whole organization or allow parts of the empire to become states of the American Union.”14

  Rhodes-Milner Secret Society Extends Its Influence to the United States

  The story of how the secret society of the Rhodes-Milner axis extended its influence into the United States is summarized by Dr. Quigley as follows:

  “... the American branch of this organization (sometimes called the ‘Eastern Establishment’) has played a very significant role in the history of the United States in the last generation.... By 1915 Round Table groups existed in seven countries, including England, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and a rather loosely organized group in the United States (George Louis Beer, Walter Lippmann, Frank Aydelotte, Whitney Shepardson, Thomas W. Lamont, Jerome D. Greene, Erwin D. Canham of the Christian Science Monitor, and others). The attitudes of the various groups were coordinated by frequent visits and discussions and by a well-informed and totally anonymous quarterly magazine The Round Table, whose first issue, largely written by Philip Kerr, appeared in November 1910.”15

  J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller and Other Wealthy Americans Join the Rhodes Secret Society

  “Money for the widely ramified activities of this organization came originally from the associates and followers of Cecil Rhodes, chiefly from the Rhodes Trust itself, and from wealthy associates such as the Beit Brothers, from Sir Abe Bailey, and (after 1915) from the Astor family. Since 1925 there have been substantial contributions from wealthy individuals and from foundations, and firms associated with the international banking fraternity, especially the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and other organizations associated with J.P. Morgan, the Rockefeller and Whitney families, and the associates of Lazard Brothers and of Morgan, Grenfell, and Company.”16

  Forming Of the British-American Secret Society Alliance

  “The chief backbone of this organization grew up along the already existing financial cooperation running from the Morgan Bank in New York to a group of international financiers in London led by Lazard Brothers. Milner himself in 1901 had refused a fabulous offer, worth up to $100,000 a year, to become one of the three partners of the Morgan Bank in London, in succession to the younger J.P. Morgan who moved from London to join his father in New York (eventually the vacancy went to E.C. Grenfell, so that the London affiliate of Morgan became known as Morgan, Grenfell, and Company.) Instead, Milner became director of a number of public banks, chiefly the London Joint Stock Bank, corporate precursor of the Midland Bank. He became one of the greatest political and financial powers in England, with his disciples strategically placed throughout England in significant places, such as the editorship of The Times, the editorship of The Observer, the managing directorship of Lazard Brothers, various administrative posts, and even Cabinet positions. Ramifications were established in politics, high finance, Oxford and London universities, periodicals, the civil service, and tax-exempt foundations.”17
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  Implementing the American Branch Of the Secret Society

  “At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended. Once again the task was entrusted to Lionel Curtis who established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group. This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group. The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan ‘experts,’ including Lamont and Beer, who had gone to the Paris Peace Conference and there became close friends with the similar group of English ‘experts’ which had been recruited by the Milner group.

  In fact the original plans for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council of Foreign Relations were drawn up at Paris. The Council of the RIIA (which, by Curtis’ energy came to be housed in Chatham House, across St. James’ Square from the Astors, and was soon known by the name of this headquarters) and the board of the Council on Foreign Relations have carried ever since the marks of their origin. Until 1960 the council at Chatham House was dominated by the dwindling group of Milner’s associates, while the paid staff members were largely the agents of Lionel Curtis. The Round Table for years (until 1961) was edited from the back door of Chatham House grounds in Ormond Yard, and its telephone came through the Chatham House switchboard.”18

  The Powerful New York Branch Of the Secret Society

  “The New York branch was dominated by the associates of the Morgan Bank. For example, in 1928 the Council on Foreign Relations had John W. Davis as president, Paul Cravath as vice-president, and a council of thirteen others, which included Owen D. Young, Russell C. Leffingwell, Norman Davis, Allen Dulles, George W. Wickersham, Frank L. Polk, Whitney Shepardson, Isaiah Bowman, Stephen P. Duggan, and Otto Kahn. Throughout its history the council has been associated with the American Round Tablers, such as Beer, Lippmann, Shepardson, and Jerome Greene.”19

  Founding Of The New Republic Magazine

  “The best example of this alliance of Wall Street and Left-wing publication was The New Republic, a magazine found by Willard Straight, using Payne Whitney money, in 1914. Straight, who had been assistant to Sir Robert Hart (Director of the Chinese Imperial Customs Service and the head of the European imperialist penetration of China) had remained in the Far East from 1901 to 1912, became a Morgan partner and the firm’s chief expert on the Far East. He married Dorothy Payne Whitney whose names indicate the family alliance of two of America’s greatest fortunes. She was the daughter of William C. Whitney, New York Utility millionaire and the sister of co-heiress of Oliver Payne, of the Standard Oil ‘trust’. One of her brothers married Gertrude Vanderbilt, while the other, Payne Whitney, married the daughter of Secretary of State John Hay, who enunciated the American policy of the ‘Open Door’ in China. In the next generation, three first cousins, John Hay (‘Jock’) Whitney, Cornelius Vanderbilt (‘Sonny’) Whitney, and Michael Whitney (‘Mike’) Straight, were allied in numerous public policy enterprises of a propagandist nature, and all three served in varied roles in the late New Deal and Truman administrations. In these they were closely allied with other ‘Wall Street Liberals,’ such as Nelson Rockefeller.... The original purpose for establishing the paper [The New Republic] was to provide an outlet for the progressive Left and to guide it quietly in an Anglophile direction.”20

  Walter Lippmann

  Walter Lippmann and The New Republic Magazine

  “This latter task was entrusted to a young man, only four years out of Harvard, but already a member of the mysterious Round Table Group, which has played a major role in directing England’s foreign policy since its formal establishment in 1909. This new recruit, Walter Lippmann, has been from 1914 to the present, the authentic spokesman in American journalism for the Establishments on both sides of the Atlantic in international affairs. His biweekly columns, which appear in hundreds of American papers, are copyrighted by the New York Herald Tribune which is now owned by J.H. Whitney. It was these connections as a link between Wall Street and the Round Table Group, which gave Lippmann the opportunity in 1918, while still in his twenties, to be the official interpreter of the meaning of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points to the British Government.”21

  Acquiring Influence Among Academic Institutions

  “This group, which in the United States, was completely dominated by J.P. Morgan and Company from the 1880’s to the 1930’s was cosmopolitan, Anglophile, internationalist, ivy League, eastern seaboard, high Episcopalian, and European-culture conscious. Their connection with the Ivy League colleges rested on the fact that the large endowments of these institutions required constant consultation with the financiers of Wall Street....

  “As a consequence of these influences, as late as the 1930’s, J.P. Morgan and his associates were the most significant figures in policy making at Harvard, Columbia, and to a lesser extent Yale, while the Whitneys were significant at Yale, and the Prudential Insurance Company (through Edward D. Duffield) dominated Princeton.

  “The names of these Wall Street luminaries still adorn these Ivy League campuses, with Harkness colleges and a Payne Whitney gymnasium at Yale, a Payne dormitory at Princeton, a Dillon Field House and Lamont Library at Harvard. The chief officials of these universities were beholden to these financial powers and usually owed their jobs to them.

  “Morgan himself helped make Nicholas Murray Butler president of Columbia; his chief Boston agent, Thomas Nelson Perkins of the First National Bank of that city, gave Conant his boost from the chemical laboratory to University Hall at Harvard; Duffield of Prudential, caught unprepared when the incumbent president of Princeton was killed in an automobile in 1932, made himself president for a year before he chose Harold Dodds for the post in 1933. At Yale, Thomas Lamont, managing partner of the Morgan firm, was able to swing Charles Seymour into the presidency of that university in 1937.”22

  The Secret Network Included Prominent New York Law Firms

  “Closely allied with this Morgan influence were a small group of Wall Street Law firms, whose chief figures were Elihu Root, John W. Davis, Paul D. Cravath, Russell Leffingwell, the Dulles brothers and more recently, Arthur H. Dean, Philip D. Reed, and John J. McCloy. Other non-legal agents of Morgan included men like Owen D. Young and Norman H. Davis.”23

  Beginning Of the Network’s Power-structure In the American Press

  “The American Branch of this ‘English Establishment’ exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers. (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript). In fact, the editor of the Christian Science Monitor was the chief American correspondent (anonymously) of The Round Table, and Lord Lothian, the original editor of The Round Table and later secretary of the Rhodes trust (1925-1939) and ambassador to Washington, was a frequent writer in the Monitor.”24

  How the Anglo-American Secret Society Penetrated All Levels Of British and American Society

  “On this basis ... there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy. In England the center was the Round Table Group, while in the United States it was J.P. Morgan and Company or its local Branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland. Some rather incidental examples of the operations of this structure are very revealing, just because they are incidental. For example, it set up in Princeton a reasonable copy of the Round Table Group’s chief Oxford headquarters, All Souls College.

  This copy, called the Institute for Advanced Study, and best known, perhaps, as the refuge of Einstein, Oppenheimer, John von Neumann, and George F. Kennan, was organized by Abraham Flexner of the Carnegie Foundation and Rockefeller’s
General Education Board after he had experienced the delights of All Souls while serving as Rhodes Memorial Lecturer at Oxford. The plans were largely drawn by Tom Jones, one of the Round Table’s most active intriguers and foundation administrators.... It might be mentioned that the existence of this Wall Street, Anglo-American axis is quite obvious once it is pointed out. It is reflected in the fact that such Wall Street luminaries as John W. Davis, Lewis Douglas, Jock Whitney, and Douglas Dillon were appointed to be American ambassadors in London.”25

  Chapter Footnotes