Born: c. 1860
Died: June 24, 1926
Married: Grace Parish Dodge
Children: Cleveland E. Dodge, Mrs. James P. Rea, Mrs. George Huntington, Dr. Bayard Dodge
Cleveland Hoadley Dodge was an official of the Phelps Dodge Corporation, founded in 1832 by his great-grandfather, Anson Phelps, and his grandfather, William E. Dodge. Dodge was a friend and a classmate of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University. Dodge managed Wilson's 1912 and 1916 presidential campaigns. He was president of the National YMCA, and served on the boards of the American Red Cross, Princeton University, Ansonia Brass and several railroads.
About 1905 Dodge bought Camp Ne-Pah-Win on Upper Saranac Lake.
Phelps Dodge was a leading copper mining corporation, and copper was in great demand for making armaments. In 1917 its profits soared. Dodge was determined, as he wrote to his Presbyterian pastor, that "I will not burn my pockets by keeping a cent of the money coming to me from war profits." He set up the Cleveland Dodge Foundation with the very general proviso that its income should be used "for the betterment of mankind", but precluded giving to health care and medical research organizations, since he felt that money for these was "already available from other sources."
New York Times, June 25, 1926
CLEVELAND H. DODGE, PHILANTHROPIST, DIES
End Comes at His Riverdale Home at Age of 66, Following Attack of Pneumonia.
A CLOSE FRIEND OF WILSON
Capitalist Headed Many Welfare Campaigns, Especially in the World War.
Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, capitalist and philanthropist, died last night at his home in Riverdale from complications which developed after an attack of pneumonia some Time ago and which recently took a serious turn.
Mr. Dodge, who was 66 years old, was Chairman of the Board of the Phelps Dodge Corporation, Vice President of the American Museum of Natural History and President of the Board of Trustees of Robert College in Constantinople. He was greatly interested in American welfare work in the Near East and had given large sums to the Near East Relief and acted as its Treasurer.
He also was a liberal contributor to the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A. and many other religious, educational and relief enterprises.
His zeal in promoting these causes was such that he was again and again appointed to head great charitable campaigns. He was the executive head of the great Red Cross campaign of 1917. He directed the United War Work campaign, which raised more than $170,000,000 for the Y. M. C. A., Knights of Columbus, Salvation Army and other relief organizations. Again and again he headed appeals for the relief of millions of war sufferers in the Near East. He urged these causes on the public with an energy and devotion which played an important part in their success.
Mr. Dodge was born in this city and was graduated from Princeton in 1879. He was a classmate and lifelong friend of Woodrow Wilson. He was the largest contributor to the Wilson campaign funds in 1912 and 1916. On his trips to this city Mr. Wilson usually visited Mr. Dodge. It is said to have been the influence of Mr. Dodge which induced the Wilson Administration to avoid war with Turkey.
Long Active In Turkey.
For more than half a century the Dodge family had been active in educational and philanthropic work in Turkey, aiming at the enlightenment of that country and at the better treatment of the Christian populations which lay under the Turkish yoke. The purpose of averting the break with Turkey was to maintain America's influence for good in the Near East.
In spite of his support and friendship for President Wilson. Mr. Dodge never accepted any political position. The only appointments which be accepted were those of heading the great relief enterprises of the Red Cross and United War Work campaigns.
Mr. Dodge belonged to an old American family which has been distinguished for generation after generation for religious zeal and philanthropic work. The first of the family in America was William Dodge, who settled at Salem, Mass., in 1629. The first New York member of the family was David Low Dodge, born in Connecticut in 1774.
He came to New York in 1805 as a partner in the firm of Higginson & Dodge, which became the largest wholesale dry goods house in New York in its day. David married a daughter of the Rev. Aaron Cleveland, grandfather of Grover Cleveland. He was one of the founders of the American Tract and Bible societies and the first President of the American Peace Society. He wrote several books on religious subjects, one being "War Inconsistent With the Religion of Jesus Christ."
David Low Dodge founded a line of philanthropists. For five generations the name has been prominent in finance and in social and religious work.
His son, William Earl Dodge, became in 1833 a partner in Phelps, Dodge & Co., which still is one of the greatest houses in the metal industries. He was one of the first directors of the Erie Railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey and other lines. He was President of the National Evangelical Alliance, the National Temperance Society and similar bodies, and a generous supporter of the Y. M. C. A.
William Earl Dodge became a large contributor to the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, Syria, which his son, the Rev. Dr. D. Stuart Dodge, founded. Thus began the family's long connection with Near East relief and educational work.
William Earl Dodge Jr. was born in New York in 1832. Besides being one of the leading financiers of New York, he was President of the National Y. M. C. A., President of the Evangelical Alliance and an official of many religious and educational organizations.
Cleveland H. Dodge was the fourth in line of this family of New York philanthropists and business men. The family's connection with the Near East has been carried a generation further by his son, Bayard Dodge, who is now President of the American University in Beirut.
On his graduation from Princeton Cleveland H. Dodge followed the family tradition. He thoroughly mastered the great business interests of his father. He succeeded his father as President of the Y. M. C. A. He not only accepted the Inheritance of charitable and social responsibilities which came down to him, but added largely to them.
He gave generous support to the Seamen's Institute Church, made large gifts to the State Charities Aid Association, which recently elected him honorary Vice President, and made two gifts of $25,000 each in one year to the Union Theological Seminary.
Gave $1,000,000 Check to Red Cross.
His gifts to the Y. M. C. A. and to the Red Cross have been enormous. One of his checks to the Red Cross in 1918 was for $1,000,000. In the same year, outbidding many competitors in a Red Cross drive, he paid $55,000 for President Wilson's proclamation of the Red Cross appeal, bearing the President's personal signature.
In February of 1925 he gave $500,000 to the Fund for Near East Colleges, one of his many gifts to that cause. Two years before he had given $165,000 to Robert College, the woman's college at Constantinople, in which he was President of the board. The year before that he gave $50,000 to that institution.
Mr. Dodge and President Wilson became close friends when they attended Princeton as classmates. Mr. Dodge was one of the early organizers of the movement which made Wilson President. He used his friendship with the President to interest him in the problems of the Near East.
Before the war broke out in Europe, President Wilson entered upon a policy intended to strengthen American influence with Turkey and to maintain a friendship which would enable American influence to be used against harshness in the treatment of Christian and other alien peoples under the Sultan's rule. This policy was maintained all through the war, even after the United States was involved in it.
Mr. Dodge was active in Wilson's second campaign. The publication of the Wilson campaign fund showed him to be the heaviest financial backer of the President. He made contributions of $50,000 and $29,000. Misunderstandings of one kind or another caused President Wilson to sever his friendship with many old and intimate friends, but not with Cleveland H. Dodge. Their terms remained those of college chums.
At the meeting in the Metropolitan Opera House at which President Wilson announced his Fourteen Points, Mr. Dodge put his arm affectionately around the President, with the pride of one old classmate in another. After the ex-President's death Mr. Dodge became the Chairman of the Wilson Memorial Fund.
Mr. Dodge was one of the strong supporters of Mayor John Purroy Mltchel in both of his campaigns. He was President of the Fusion Committee of 3917. He became Chairman of the Mitchel Memorial Fund.
Mr. Dodge was an active supporter of the League of Nations and of the World Court. Though sympathizing with President Wilson's stand against the Lodge reservations, he with many other leading American friends of the League signed a petition to President Wilson in 1920, asking the President to accept the League of Nations, in spite of the reservations.
"As devoted friends of the League of Nations." said this appeal to the President, "we very respectfully propose a plan by which the world, and we as part of it, may immediately enter upon the benefits of our membership in the League of Nations on whatever basis of agreement may be immediately reached, and the irreconcilable points of difference be settled later by referendum or otherwise as President Wilson, however, rejected the advice, and the Senate Democrats, at his wish, voted down the proposal to enter the League with the Lodge reservations.
Mr. Dodge was a director of the Dawson Fuel Sales Company, President and director of the Golden Hill Corporation, director of the National City Bank of New York, director of the Old Dominion Company of Maine and, until recently, director of the Southern Pacific. He was until recently President of the International Paper Company.
As Vice President of the American Museum of Natural History, he held a position which practically had become hereditary in the Dodge family. He was a trustee of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, of the New York Public Library and the New York Zoological Society. He belonged to the Century University, New York Yacht, National Arts and City clubs…
