J. Roderick MacArthur (1920-1984) was a U.S. businessman and philanthropist. The J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation, a philanthropic organization interested in Civil Liberties in the United States, and the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago School of Law[1] are named after him. He is the son of billionaire John D. MacArthur who established the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Biography
J. Roderick MacArthur, known as Rod MacArthur, was born December 21, 1920 to the former Louise Ingals and John D. MacArthur. The couple also had a daughter, Virginia MacArthur. In 1926 John D. MacArthur traveled to Mexico to divorce and two years later married Catherine T. Hyland.
Rod MacArthur attended Rollins College in Florida and worked as a stringer for the Associated Press in Mexico. During World War II he joined the American Field Service, serving with the French Army in the ambulance corp., and he participated in the campaign that liberated France.
He worked for his father in the Insurance industry before they became estranged. In 1973 while working with a company that sold ceramic collectable plates, MacArthur noticed that the collectible ceramic market was chaotic. He started the Bradford Exchange which by the time of his death sold about 90% of all the collectable plates in the world. Often credited with becoming “a self-made millionaire”, in actuality MacArthur he had some financial backing from his father, although the idea, business plan and effort were indeed Rod MacArthur’s own. In 1975, once the exchange was successful, his eccentric father claimed that Bradford Exchange was his business and John D. MacArthur seized the Bradford Exchange’s customer lists and put the on hand inventory under lock and key. J. Roderick MacArthur then organized a “private posse” that broke into his father’s corporate headquarters in Chicago and hustled the inventory into a waiting fleet of trucks. MacArthur inherited virtually no money from his father.
Rod MacArthur married Christiane L’Entendart in Paris in 1947 and had a daughter and two sons, one of them the publisher and president of Harper's Magazine John R. “Rick” MacArthur.
Rod Macarthur died December 15, 1984 at age 63 from pancreatic cancer.
Philanthropic Endeavors
Father and son reconciled before John D. MacArthur died on January 6, 1978, (also of pancreatic cancer, the disease that would kill his son 6 years later) and he named Rod MacArthur to the board of his foundation . At that point, John D. MacArthur was worth in excess of $1 billion and was reportedly one of the three richest men in the United States. John D. MacArthur left ninety-two percent of his estate to begin the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The composition of the Foundation’s first Board of Director’s, per John D. MacArthur’s will, included J. Roderick MacArthur, Catherine T. MacArthur (his second wife), three officers of Bankers Life and Casualty, and Radio Commentator Paul Harvey. John D. MacArthur grandson, and Rod MacArthur’s son, John R. “Rick” MacArthur has charged publicly:
“The idea behind the foundation was as a tax dodge that he thought would allow his business executives to run his company forever. He clearly didn't understand the tax laws."[2]
In any event, J. Roderick Macarthur quickly clashed with the Board of his father’s foundation. The Bankers Life executives and Paul Harvey held conservative views regarding the structure and size of the board, its purpose and the sale of the business.
The Board was expanded to thirteen members in 1979. The new members had backgrounds from academia, science, government, and business. This board now openly and publicly fought over the grants that were made to favorite board member causes, often trading votes among themselves. Even though there was support for each board member’s causes an extremely bitter and public argument erupted between Rod MacArthur and former U.S. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon over board grants to a number of conservative causes Simon supported. Eventually Simon resigned from the board.
Rod MacArthur continued to be unhappy with the foundation and its management. He launched two lawsuits, the first in February, 1984 against his fellow board members charging in essence Board members were executives of Bankers Life executives and were looking out for their own best interest and not the needs of the foundation. His suit also alleged that the foundation was not managing its assets properly. MacArthur claimed that high fees were being paid to board members for their foundation work and he felt that Bankers Life was not being managed well and had lost value. He requested that the foundation be either dissolved or that the court appoint a receiver to manage and sell Bankers Life.
The Board found a buyer for Bankers Life that was willing to pay $384 million for the company. Rod agreed to this sale since it was $116 million more than an offer he had blocked.[3] Since this removed the Bankers Life issue from the suit, the board believed that Rod would drop the suit. However, there were still the allegations that board members and key foundation executives were profiting at the expense of the foundation.
Rod MacArthur settled the suit shortly before his death.
Rod MacArthur made two lasting and important contributions while on the board of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. First, he is the person who pushed the Board to offer the famous MacArthur fellowships, also called “Genius Grants”[4]. Second, in 1980 at the urging of his son John R. “Rick” MacArthur, then 23, Rod persuaded the Board to partner in creating and funding a Harper's Magazine Foundation to acquire and operate the magazine of the same name. This new entity acquired Harper's Magazine (which was then losing nearly $2 million per year and was on the verge of ceasing publication) for $250,000.Eventually Rick MacArthur took over the foundation that owned Harper’s.
Two years before his father died, Rod MacArthur, used his substantial fortune from the Bradford Exchange, to form his own foundation. As of 2004, the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation had $22 million in assets[5] and supports liberal causes, including the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., and the J. Roderick MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago Law School[6]. In the philanthropic world the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation is known colloquially as "Little Mac" and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is known as “Big Mac”.
External links
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Website noting J. Roderick’ MacArthur’s role in the Genius Grant’s
- Independent Article about the founding of the Genius Grants
- letter to the Editor of the New York Times by MacArthur’s Lawyer regarding the Law suits
- Website of the J. Roderick MacArthur Justice Center
- 2004 Chicago Sun Article on the Foundation and J. Roderick MacArthur’s early role.