George Soros usually is described as that Hungarian-born international financier and philanthropist. Anyone who has lived in Central or Eastern Europe or has survived war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina knows that the title philanthropist should come first.
Now Americans know, for Soros, by his actions, hasissued a challenge to all Americans, and particularly to wealthy ones, to help this nation’s needy.
Soros, who fled Hungary for England in 1947 and came to the U.S. in 1956, announced last week that he is donating $50 million to assist legal immigrants who may suffer under recently enacted welfare reform. The law, passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton, restricts federal benefits, such as food stamps, from even legal immigrants.
“This is a clear-cut case of injustice and is contrary to this country’s proud tradition of welcoming immigrants,” Soros said in creating the Emma Lazarus Fund, named after the poet whose words greet arrivals passing beneath the Statue of Liberty. Reasonable people may differ on whether the new legislation is just, but Soros’ charity is thoroughly laudable.
This new Soros charity–he has many, which spent $350 million in 1995, with one underwriting heat in Sarajevo and others spreading the tools of democracy throughout the formerly communist world–will help immigrants apply for U.S. citizenship and will support community groups that give educational and legal support to new arrivals from abroad.
Soros, again, has done something remarkable. Instead of just complaining about an injustice at home or overseas, he has complained and then dipped into his own wallet, deep as it is, and given a remarkably large sum to charity.
This should be a challenge to all, and especially to those who complain loudest that our government is too big but then do nothing to help those in need who may slip and fall when the federal rug is, if not pulled out from under them, at least rolled up.
Media mogul Ted Turner also has, in recent weeks, gone on the record to urge this nation’s wealthiest to become the most charitable; Turner was responding to a recent study indicating that the richest people give a smaller proportion of their income to charity than do those less well off.
The “Mouth of the South” put his money where his is, giving away $200 million. Turner says the world would be a better place if all those lists of America’s richest were replaced by lists honoring America’s richest who also give the most to charitable causes.
