Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/311

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ROSCOE—ROSS, R. B.
293

stitution (1913, lectures delivered at Princeton); Addresses on International Subjects (1916) ; Addresses on Government and Citizen- ship (1916); The Military and Colonial Policy of the United States (1916); Latin America and the United States (1917); Miscellaneous Addresses (1917); North Atlantic Coast Fisheries at The Hague (1917) and The United States and the War (1918).


ROSCOE, SIR HENRY ENFIELD (1833-1915), English chemist (see 23.725), died at Leatherhead, Surrey, Dec. 18 1915.


ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, 5TH EARL OF (1847- ), British statesman (see 23.731), took an active part in the constitutional crisis in 1910 and 1911. He treated the Parliament bill as a revolutionary measure which in effect constituted single-chamber Government, and did his utmost to arouse the nation to a sense of its danger. But he disapproved of the bill which Lord Lansdowne introduced in May 1911 for the reconstitution of the House of Lords, holding that the Opposition ought to have contented themselves with reaffirming his own resolutions of the previous year. If the Parliament bill became law, Lord Lansdowne's bill mattered little; who would then be the acolytes and sycophants who would accept the de- grading position of members of a second chamber? While, how- ever, he bitterly condemned the conduct of ministers in going to " a young and inexperienced King " for contingent guarantees, he declined to follow the extreme course of rejecting the bill recommended by the " Die-hards." He shrank from the scandal of a great creation of peers. If the bill were allowed to pass, the House would be left with some vitality; if the creation of peers was forced, they would have none at all. He showed his own estimate of the impotence of the House after the passage of the bill by ceasing to attend its debates; and indeed he took no further part in public life till the outbreak of war in 1914 fired his patriotism. As lord-lieutenant of Midlothian and Linlith- gowshire he promoted recruiting and other warlike activities in his own country; and helped to hearten the nation and to avert a premature peace by occasional speeches. His feeling was shown by a preface which he wrote in Oct. 1914 for the first volume of Col. John Buchan's History of the War. He spoke of " the incalculable blessing which the damnable invasion of Belgium has conferred incidentally upon ourselves. ... It has revealed to the world the enthusiastic and weather-proof unity of the Empire. . . . Blood shed in common is the cement of nations, and we and our sons may look to see a beneficence of empire, not such as the Prussians dreamed of, not a war-lordship over other nations, not a nightmare of oppression, but a world-wide British influence which shall be a guarantee of liberty and peace, and which, hand-in-hand with our Allies in Europe and with our kindred in the United States, should go far to make such another war as this impossible."

The war cost Lord Rosebery his younger son, the Right Hon. NEIL PRIMROSE (1882-1917), whose political advance had been watched by his father with eager sympathy. He was under- secretary for the Foreign Office in 1915, parliamentary secretary for Munitions in 1916, and at the close of that year became Coalition Liberal Whip under Mr. Lloyd George. But these appointments were only held for short periods in the intervals of fighting as a captain in the Buckinghamshire Hussars, and he died of wounds received in action in Palestine in Nov. 1917. He had married Lord Derby's daughter in 1915. Lord Rose- bery had a further domestic sorrow in the dissolution, in 1919, of the marriage (celebrated in 1909) of his elder son Lord Dalmeny with Dorothy A. M. A. Grosvenor. Lord Rosebery was created Earl of Midlothian in the peerage of the United Kingdom the earldom of Rosebery being a Scottish earldom at the coronation of King George in 1911, at which ceremony, as at the coronation of King Edward, he was one of the lords who bore the canopy. He became chancellor of Glasgow University in 1908 as he had long been chancellor of London University; and was chosen lord rector of St. Andrews University for the year of its quin- centenary celebration in 1911.


ROSEGGER, PETER (1843-1918), Austrian poet and novelist (see 23.734), died in 1918. (See AUSTRIAN EMPIRE: Literature.)


ROSENTHAL, TOBY EDWARD (1848-1917), American painter (see 23.735), died in Berlin, Germany, Dec. 28 1917.


ROSENWALD, JULIUS (1862- ), American merchant and philanthropist, was born at Springfield, 111., Aug. 12 1862, and was educated in the public schools. From 1885 to 1906 he was president of Rosenwald & Weil, clothing manufacturers, Chicago. In 1895 he became vice-president and treasurer of the mail- order house of Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago, and in 1910 president. The gross sales of the company, which were $1,750,- ooo in 1896, increased under his management to $258,000,000 in 1919. He served during the World War under appointment by President Wilson as a member of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense. In 1918 he was sent on a special mission of cheer by Secretary Baker, of the War Depart- ment, to the American troops in France. In 1919-20 he served in Washington as a member of the President's Industrial Conference. He devoted much time to work for philanthropic, educational and civic organizations. He gave $150,000 to Tuskegee (Ala.) Normal and Industrial Institute; $250,000 for a building to house Jewish philanthropic organizations of Chicago; and (with Mrs. Rosenwald) $750,000 for new buildings for the university of Chicago. Of the latter sum $250,000 was used to erect a building, Julius Rosenwald Hall, for the departments of geology and geography, and $500,000 for buildings for the medical department. He founded dental infirmaries in the Chicago public schools. During the World War he gave large sums to relief organizations, in 1917 alone $1,000,000 to aid sufferers in eastern Europe. He contributed generously to, and took a leading part in securing contributions for, the Hoover Chil- dren's Relief Fund in 1920-1. Beginning in 1914, he stimulated a programme for building rural schools for negroes in the south- ern states by agreeing to contribute toward their cost and toward the lengthening of the school terms, provided both the whites and the negroes of the neighbourhood contributed also and that public funds were appropriated. Up to 1920, 800 schools were thus constructed at a total cost of $1,500,000, of which Mr. Rosenwald gave $400,000. In 1920,, 500 additional buildings were authorized for immediate construction at an approximate cost of $2,000,000, of which Mr. Rosenwald agreed to pay $500,000. At the close of 1920, 14 cities had Y.M.C.A. build- ings for negroes, costing altogether $2,000,000, because of Mr. Rosenwald's offer to contribute $25,000 to each city under cer- tain conditions. His share in the cost was $350,000. He was an official of several leading philanthropic, civic and educa- tional organizations of Chicago, including the 'university of Chicago; also of the Rockefeller Foundation, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, the Baron de Hirsch Fund and the American Jewish Committee, and was identified with many other movements for public benefit throughout the country.

On Dec. 29 1921 it was announced that Mr. Rosenwald had pledged about $20,000,000 to safeguard the interests of Sears, Roebuck & Co. during the critical period of business re- adjustment after the World War. He increased the company's fluid assets by purchasing for $16,000,000 part of the real estate owned by the company in Chicago, and gave the company from his own holdings 50,000 shares of its common stock (par value $100). In 1920 and 1921 the company had paid no dividends on its common stock and it was apparent that its accounts at the end of 1921 must show a deficit. But Mr. Rosenwald by this action enabled the company to readjust its finances with- out impairing its capital stock, and protected its stockholders, many of them employees. It was recognized generally that he established a precedent which raised the standards of business when he thus faced heavy loss in order to protect those who had bought shares because of their confidence in his leadership, and also in order to foster the practice of employees' participative investment.


ROSS, SIR GEORGE WILLIAM (1841-1914), Canadian politician (see 23.739), was knighted in 1910. He published, amongst other works, The Life and Times of the Hon. Alex. Mackenzie and Getting into Parliament and After. He died March 8 1914.


ROSS, ROBERT BALDWIN (1869-1918), British art critic and writer, was born at Tours May 25 1869, the son of the-