The Mathers
The Role of Competitive
in the Evolution
S. Sterling
P~tinersMp
of the Pdtan
EtMc
McMillan111
Richard Mather’s Congregation~ Purita p~sh W= founded in 1636 in Dorchester, Massachuse~
Yde @llege in 17’ol,~e Connecti~t Md comp~y in 1’791,~ck~ds Mather md Co. in 1883,the
nation’sf~st United Way carnpai~, the C]eve~~d Wa Chest (later Community Chest), in 191Yand the
Cleveland Clinic in 1919.After World War U a major feder~ly funded effort to unlock the secrets of fu~~~~
~Wer W~ b~
under the aegis of the Atomic Energy @remission hea~qu~ered
inw~hington,
~~.
On the surface these seven undeti~ngs may appear to have little in common beyond the obvious —
namely that they represent beginnings of institution that were to play ~ import~t role in the develop
rnent of the United States
what is le~ obvious iSthe irifluentid role that he Mather family played in tie founding of each of
theseinstitutio~ how the founding ~d subsequent development of each of these ~stitutions contributed
tO the Mathers’ overriding Puritm ethic, and how each of them contributed to the development of “co~petitive partnerships” that enhanced that realization of the Mathers’ core Puritan ethic.
me Matier fami]y of New En@and ~d Ohio has emb~ked on m~y ofier religious, Civic and busineSS CreatiOnS in the 3@ years and 13 generations since ~ch~d Mather, dis~ssessed of his Engfish pulpit,
mived to take up his puritan mtiisteri~ Mlling in the six year old M~sachusetts Bay colony. But thk
paper is designed to initiate a prelimin~ exploration of how “competitive p~tnership” developed as an
enduring ~d powerful element of the Puritw etti~cthat hm driven the ~thers for 3@ yews md 13 generationsfrom the early seventeenth century to the present. ~erefore, these seven undert~ngs
are only a
rePreSefiWtiVe hSting of some of the competitive partnerships in which the Mathers had ~ major role. A fin
~Stillg wotid be t~ long since the concept pervaded eve~ ~pect of their life: religion, f~ily, politics, We
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tivic fitir% medcine, science and industry.~ey are chosen because their beginnings are spread out
over the whole 360 year$ and the institutions survive to this my; they we of nation~, not just regional
importance; and they encompass both pieces of what the original puritans found to be an arttlcial disti~ction between the proper goals of the “profit” ad “non-profit” world.
me scope of the paper and my current state of knowledge also preclude a full examination of the ebb,
flow and evolution of each of these examples. I wil~deal more fully with the f~st two e~ples
which de~
with the core puritan institution. of church and school and touch on the other five e~ples
in only the
Sketchiest farm, leaving further elaboration to the question and answer session ~d to future presentation.
h so doing I hope to question our current adherence to “political correctness” that in the interest of avoiding coti~cts of interest deters the cross fertilization that is one of the keys to the benefits of “competitive
partnership”. I submit that the evolution and surviv~ of these institutions in part through the mechanism
of competitive pafinership suggests the potential power and vafue of the concept as an important element
of today’s living puritan ethic. ~d I question whether these competitive partnerships would have come
about without the sometimes con~icted leadership of people like the Mather\ people who derive their
f~dlment by pursuing a “high” aitmistic calling across organizational lines,people who join the religious
and the secular, the phllathopic and the profit sectors into an integrated, untiled whole.
What do I spetilcdly mean when I speak of “competitive partnership” as the Mathers lived it within
tie Puritan Ethic? First, it is important to recall that a fmdamental tenet of puritanism is the striving by
the “elect” to create ~O@Spure tision Onthis Emh by passionately pursuing one’s “calling”. It fo~ows to
the puritan fiat M aspects of life — religious,artistic, business,government and civic— are to be parG of
m integrated whole, not i~dependent causes.Partners are to be chosen with care to make sure that their
cding and sfi~s meet tie ~ee~ of a t~k. ~O~S pure vision is only to be met through energetic teamwork.
But teamwork, i.e. p~ership, bYi~e~ is not enough. However great the eff~cienciesof integration, scale
and specia~ation, m~kind tefi~ to grow static md complacent without the creativity and impetus for
improvement fostered by spirited competition.
Cefia.in e~ements Qfa ~omW~tive PafinershiP Stand out across all of these examples and are as valid
tday as they were in 1636
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The de of working units within an organization must be smaI1enough to ~low strong persoul
tienfi~tion
with the successor failure of the unit and the organization.
me mm
of the organization must be krge enough and skilledenough to allow operational
economies ofscaleand to provide critid mass to enable development, production md sale of a
competitive, constantly improving product or service.
“f’hemanagement and work force of an organization must be &osen based not just by competence
and intelligence, but most importantly by the passion and energy that the person brings to the task at
hand.
A mechanism or cooperative structure is needed to provide cross fertibation between competing
organizations and to prevent destructive competition that could otherwise waste resources and
ultimately lead to predatory and static monopoly.
The organization must have an ethm that puts h~
development in the sense of striving to meet a
high c~ing as a central focal point.
With these requirements in mind, let’s take a brief look at ou~ seven examples
k 1637 Richard Mather, after only one year’s residency in the six year old Massachusetts Bay Colony,
ended a year of kdecision and self examination by committing himseti to joining the brotherhood of ~ritan New England ministry.With the encouragement and approval of his six fellow “deVines”and beholden
only to the governance of his congregation, he brought together at Dorchester, one of the seven original
villages of the Bay Colony, a new congregation organized under the already agreed upon ground rules of
non-separatist congregational Puritanism.
Non-separatist Congregational Puritanism was unique in 1636 in that while nominally a part of the
Anglican Church it paid no allegiance to the Anglican hierarchy of bishops; each congregation was independent and Iegtiy empowered to choose its minister and its interpretation of doctrine, all under the charter granted to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Nominally the church bowed to the body politic, the governor and the Bay Colony Court (a council) on secular matters But the common adherence of the first
generation of settlers to non-conformist puritan principles meant that in practice the Bay Colony was a
theocracy where devines like John Cotton, Richard Mather, ?homas Shepard, John Davenport, ?’homas
Hmker and a small group of other pastors through sermons and advice lead the community from a philanthropic, secular, education, politid and business standpoint, as we~ as in matters reiigious. For example
Richard’s son, hcrease, served as the non-resident president of Harvard for 16 years at the same time he
was pastor of the Old North Church and de facto ambassador of the Bay Colony to the Court of King
Charles II and James II in England over the negotiations to get the revoked charter reins~ted. In the business sector the devines set the acceptable level of profitability and woe betide anyone who exceeded it as
Boston tradesman Robert Keayne found out in 1639 when he only avoided excommunication and loss of
coveted church membership by “penetentidl acknowledgment” of his sin of excessive profiteering.
But how did Richard Mather, his son, Mcrease, and his grandson, Cotton, together with Richard’s
other five sons and tieir progeny contribute to the creation of the Congregational Church and later a
ecumenical consortium of fiesbyterian, Episcopalian nd other Protestant sects that operated as an effective “competitive partnership” ~ both the religious and secular spheres.
Most important, given the autocratic, monopolistic nature of both the religious and secular world of
1636,was the unique opportunity that the Bay Colony ch~er gave the ~migr6s to organize themselves
under the puritan precepts that were common to all of them. The Puritan reaction against the corruption
and static monopoly of the hierarchal and autwratic Anglican (and Roman Catholic) churches was of
such intensity to cause the Bay Colony to assure congregational independence from a stifling hierarchy.
~is congregational inde~ndence met OUrfirst test of “competitive partnership”, i.e. working units small
enough to allow person~ identification. mat thk happened l@ years before Adam Smith pub~ihed
“We~th of Nations” setting out for dl the advantages of free trade, competition and seti-seeking profiteering in a non-monopolistic setting is a testament to the unique combination of factors that coalesced under
the leadership of the Bay Colony devines.
~nlike the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth that preceded the Bay Colony by ten year$ the Bay Colony
expedition brought with them adequate leaders, settlers, money and goods to survive and prosper. me
initial emigration in 1630involved 14 ships to the Pilgrims one. It was inspired by the puritan rntiister of
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Dorchester in England, John White. It Wm adequately fm~ce~ and led on site by tie likes of the wealti~
SdtO~ti$ ~veret~ Johnsons, Du~ey~ Bra&tree@ @chons, Downings ~d Wlnthrops, a group of
pUri~ friends centered around the E~l of ~co~n. It ~c~uded so m~y ~fifi~ ~~llege ~bridge
edUcated Writans that the Colony was said to be the most educated geographic entity in the world. Moreover?
bYthe tie Brazenose college Oxford educated ~Ch~d Mather ~rived ~ 1636, hating been relieved Of
hk pulpit by Bishop hud, he wm in tie company of ~ousands of ad~tion~ g~~~s of fifit~ persUas~Orl
dl &ven from En@and for sfii]ar rem~n~~e ~]ony Clearly had broU@t with it adequate resources tO
meet the second requirement of a “competitive p~ership.”
me re~utied passion and energy for a Competitive p~ers~p
were ~so at had, driven by the ideo10gi@lbmk for the emigration. Llketise, tie f~ requ~ement, ~ ethos emph~iz~g personal development through achieving a “high” calling was inherent in the basic Puritan ethic.
me cross fert.iIizationbetween tows ~d Con=egations be~s f~ther comment ~cause it happened
thrOUgh infO~d channels outside of the clear strictures of the Chwter. me devines of the various
churches of the original seven towns Of the Bay Colony (Roxbu~, Dorchester, ~hmlestown, L~n
(Saugus), Medfor& Cambridge (Ne~~~) ad Boston) met inform~y from time to time w well as forrXl~y irl nOn-b~hg
synods to develop psi~ons for e~p~e on how to h~~e second generation membe~~p h the church. On this pivoti issue Richard Mather, by then a major leader in the Church as we~~X
being married to John Cotton’s widow,formulated “the h~ way coven~t”; his son, Mcrease, for a time
t~k a more conservative position, but in the end espoused his father’s more liber~ le~ings En brief the
devines ruled through the power of persuasion to the politic~ and economic leaders of the communi~
with church membership a critical carrot to maintain the right to vote.
me itiUx of settlers from pre-crornwelli~ En@~d, the dominant person~ities of many of the early
devine~ m inability to a~ee on docttind matters and a quick exhaustion of the fur SUpply in the vichi~
of Bostoa quickly resulted in a proliferation of settlemen~ all exercising ~eir congregational independence. For example in 1634-1635Thomas Hooker decaped wi~ his congregation from Newtown to the
@nnecticut Rver near Hartford, in 1637WIltia.mPynchon beg~ a Vil]age at A~~
(Sprin@~eld) wtile
in 1638J’ohnDavenport and ~eophilus Eaton founded the separate colony of NewHaven.
~ese early New England vi~age$ governed ~der a town meeting structure where church membership WMrequired for the vote, independent of higher authority, ifiuenced and bound together by common beliefs which were interpreted and evolved under the guidace of the devines, prospered Spiritually
and matenaUy as an early example of competitive partnership.
h later years the basic Puritan ethic and emphasis on competitive pafinership never left the Mather
family, but itsreligious manifestation became more dispersed and ecumenic~ as the country’s size and
diversity grew. For example, during the nineteenth century Digby Bait.zellcounted 28 direct Mather descendants in the male line md 52 in the female line holding pulpits in the northeast and Midwest. Sever~
additional Mathers were active as college presidents or professors a closely tilliated religious activity up
until the early years of the twentieth century. And the example set by Timothy, the only son of Rchard, a
Dorchester farmer who disappointed his kinsman by not becoming a minister, established a secular puritan alternative for the family that would be followed later by many of his limein Connecticut and Ohio.
h Cleveland, for example, from the late lm
until his death Samuel Mather was actively involved as
senior warden of Ttinity Cathedral in Cleveland as well ash supporting the national Episcopalian effort as
a board member of tie church’s lay governing body. At the same time his wife,Flora Stone Mather, was a
dedicated lay leader of the Presbyterian Old Stone Church thereby creating a competitive partnership
fight within the family.~eir ecumenical religious interests formed the driving force behind all of their
other activities k both the non-profit and profit sphere.
Our second example of a puritan based competitive partnership induced by the Mathers be~ns 65
years after Wch=d’s arrival in Dorchester. ti 1701,Richard’s son, kcrease’s 16-year tenure as part time,
non-resident president QfHarvard College came to an abrupt and unwanted end when Increase’s conservative vision for H~ud W* Hberalked to include Baptist and Anglican participation on the Board of
Overseers ~th consequent academic rafilcati~ns ~~ease and his son, Cotton, responded by recommending the re~~tion of the 65 year o~~~ea
QfJOhIIDavenport and ~eophilus Eaton to establish a
tival “coHe@ate SC~OOl”
in New Haven. Before yea-end, this new college,renamed Yale at Cotton’s suggestion ti ~71$, was ~ b~s~es: ~oc~ :~t H~~~~
ori~n~ Congregational Puritan mission. The dynamic cooperative Yetc~mPet~t~vere~a~onship that evolved over the years between liberalized Harvard,
44
conservative Yale and 55 years later the newly founded reactionary puritan Princeton bears many of the
h~marks of a competitive partnership. Perhaps the resultant constant attempt to improve partly accounts
for the pre-eminence of those three institutions today.And the competition and cooperation still goes on
under the semi-formalized organization known as the “Ivy League.”
Scale and resource have always been carefully bdmced at all three institutions in keeping with their
common puritan roots ernphastilng hdividual development and scientflcally based furtherance of knowiedge. But the resulting excellence has also been enhanced by vigorous cross fertilization between the three
institutions.
In the beginning, all of the Yale administration and facul~ was Harvard educated and shared
acommon set of goals with the Harvard of Increase Mather. ~deed, Cotton Mather was twice offered the
presidency of Yale and turned it down only to continue his father’s ministry in Boston and in hopes of a
return to power at Harvard. Over the years the faculty and administration of the three institutions have
shown notable hybrid vigor right down to the present where Princeton provost Neil Rudenstine now
serves as president of Hamard with an agenda of using his Princeton experience to revitalize Hward undergraduate teaching and to achieve more synergy between Harvard’s various schools and departments.
me Mather support and involvement at the three institutions has continued down to the present.
Samuel Mather, son of Increase’s brother, Timothy, and the Congregational minister of Windsor, Connecticut was one of the 10 founding devines of Yde who as founding trustees gave the f~st books of the
Yde library. Brooks Mather Kelly,Yale 1953,played an influential twentieth century role at Yde as a historian whose careful research on Yale’sroots was an important element in shaping its evolution into the
Yale of today. And alSOworthy of note are the many, many Mather progeny of both the patriarchal and
matriarchal lines who have studied at the three institutions. For example, Samuel Livingston Mather of
Cleveland who graduated from Yale in 1905 was an ardent supporter all his life. He was responsible for
recruiting many of Cleveland’s best to attend Yale,for encouraging and financing technical innovations
like underwater windows that he~pedBob Kiphuth dominate Ivy Uague swimming for decades and for
keeping the competitive partnership alive in Cleveland by annually hosting at his farm a Harvard-YalePrinceton picnic.
Other Mathers were instrument in creating new colleges in the Midwest under the same guiding
principals. For example, in 1830 Princeton educated theology professor, Charles Baachus Storr, a matriarchal Mather, was elected as the f~st president of the four year old Western Reserve College in Hudson,
Ohio. A puritan institution in the mold of Princeton and Yale, the college was founded under the joint
sponsorship of the Connecticut based Congregational Church and the Pennsylvania-based Presbyterian
Church. Storr quickly put Western Reserve on the map by his leadership in the pre-Civil War abolitionist
movement that promptly took strong root in Boston. Aside from the pragmatically-based inclusion of
Presbytenanism, the influence of and resemblance to Yde was such that Western Rese~e quickly became
known as “the Yale of the Midwest”. Samuei and FIora Stone Mather and Flora’s father Amasa Stone
were responsible for the move of WRU to University Circ~ein Cleveland to create a competitive pafinership with the Case Institute of Technology as well as the development of the Western Reserve Medicd
SchooI as a leading academic medicd center that competed and cooperated with Johns Hopkins and
Harvard, the other two leading centers at the time.
HopefuUy,these two portrayals of puritanical competitive partnership as practiced consciously and
unconsciously by the Mathers give a flavor of how the concept has played a continuing role in the religious
and educational development of our country. Next, I would like to sketch in far more shorthand form
other examples inland development, natur~ resource development, philanthropy, medicine and government sponsored fusion power research.
In 1791 Samuel Mather, Jr., a fifth generation descendent of Wchard Mather living in Middleton, Connecticut was one of seven directors who established the Connecticut Land Company. The land company’s
purpose was to purchase and develop Connecticut’s Western Reserve, the lands bounded on the north by
Lake Erie, on the east by Pennsylvania, On the SOUthby an east-west line running south of Akron ad on
the west by Toledo. The proceeds were to be dedicated to funding Connecticut’s Pubfic school ~stem.
Whtie Mather’s 1.5 percent interest in the project cost him $18,%1, a considerable sum in those days his
Muence in organizing and structuring the project was more meaningful than his Sm#I percentage interest
wodd suggest.
From the standpoint of compet~tive parmership, the s~c~re of the l~d comp~y which distributed
by lottery most of the land to individual shareholders resulted in competitive incentive to development
that resulted in pockets of development Mat&d not necess~~y occur at the normal confluences of rivers
]~es ~d roak~d
in the case of Smuel Mather, Jr+~ 1~45it brought his ~~d,son Smuel tivingst~~
Mather, a lawyer 10 years out of newly founded wesley~, to ~eve]~d from ~ddleton to sell offthe
f~fly’s remaiting land holdings in the Western Rese~e. Upon ~s ~iv~ in Cleveland, he ~most immediately partnered as lawyer with the other founding investors ti the Clevel~d Iron ~ning Company, the
pioneer iron mining venture in the Lake Superior district.
OU next example begins k 1881 when s~~el Mather, while continuing what was to be a Melong
directorship, resigned as an employee in his fatier’s clevel~d fion M~~g ~mpany to found a COm~tia signifiat
tive fi~, PiCk~ds Mather with the Plckmds brofiers and ~y Morse. However, he rem~ed
owner ad director of Cleveland-~iff& a direct ~mpetitor, ~ ~s ~e. me ~gorous competition between
Wdlia.mG. Mather, Samuel’shti brother who succeeded h~ father m head of C]evelmdCliffs, and
Samuel created a competitive partnership mat ~el~d l)o~ fi~s s~y with or Mead of H~na, C)glebay
Norton and the in-house iron mining and transportation arms of the steel companies
h the process Samuel Mather tirough his interest in the ~l~ois Steel comp~y (merged into US
steel w the Gq works), through his help in puttkg together the ~on ore ~d s~pping al-m of US Steel x
a founding director and through his partner, mry Coulby,who r~ both the ~ck~ds Mather fleet and
the competitive US Steel fleet, spread the concept of competitive p~nership throughout his business
detiln~ Perhaps the most telling example of how the two Mather brothers h~dled this complex relationship occurred in the midst of a heated, sometimes ~ltter ad ~most dest~ctive competition over whether
Youngstown Sheet and ~be was to be merged ~to ~~fis’ sti~lbom Midwest Steel ~or~ration
or remain
= a onsumer of PM iron ore as part of Bethlehem Steel. At the height of the dispute the two brothers
put aside their differences ~d departed amicably on a ]ong planned trip together to Europe. T’hroughOut it
dl they cooperated in both the business and civic spheres where community benefit was to be gained.
h dl of Sam Mather’s business dealings the other h~lm~ks of a puritan b~ed ~mpetitive partnership were present: the careful choice of partners who had a pmsion for the task at h~d; the Scaiing of the
working units at the smatiest size possible to assure intividu~ inmntive ad fu~lllmen~ the consolidation
of effort where needed to bring together adequate capital and research and development resources to
improve continually operational efficiency and product quality; ~d a sense of “high” purpose that emphasized environmental concerns more aggressively than others of the time at the same time profits were
brgely redistributed to phtianthropic ends.
The success of these concepts in the business world probably fostered Samuel Mather’s use of the
same principles in the non-profit sector when he took the lead in forming the Victory Chest in 1917 wtich
qtickly evolved into the first community fund (now known as United Way) in the nation — clear example
of partnership in fund raising and competition in service design and delivery.
h 1919George Crile brought competition with precious little partnership to Sam Mather at University Hospitis by founding the Cleveland ~inic. Mather as president of the board, visionary and donor and
Crile as nationtiy prominent chief surgeon had worked together since the turn of the century to create
one of the top three academic medicd centers in the country.For five years until Crile’s retirement from
University Hospitis in 1924 an uneasy partnership continued. But after 1924, the ~inic presented formidable competition as Cnle took with him many of the paying patients that helped finance UH’s teaching
mission and free care of the indigent. The Clinic’s mission and s~cture also turned out to be more patient
friendly tha UWs star fiefdoms.me Clinic was a non-academicdly affiliated doctor financed and led
hospit~, outpatient and research organization where each doctor was on salary rather than engaged ti a
private practice with visiting pri~eges.
While Mather may not have appreciated the unbridled competition that the Clinic represented, in the
end enough partnership and cross ferti~ization has murred to qualii the relationship as one of
Cleveland’s most successfti competitive partnerships Over the years both institutions have grown into
large fwst rank medical institutions that attract student%patients and doctors from all over the world. Both
institutions have created many research successes and innovations. Today the jointly owned and operated
kitiey stone fitiotipt.ex and a joint radio educationauadvefising program are examples of cooperation at
the same time the two ~stitutions keep each other co~st~dy on their toes as they compete for the best
doctor% improve ~d expmd heir facilities and develop a network of feeder and follow on organizations
that mesh with theti tefiiary care core specialties.
My find exmp~e Ofa m~e~ day puribn ~ompe~itivep~nership, tiis time in government, is the
post World W= E Atomic EnerW ~mm~sion Pro~arn to develoP fusion Power, a program that reached
46
its objective of creating more power OUItha in at the Forrestal Laboratories at Princeton University just
late last year. For 20 years from 1950until 1970Amasa Stone Bishop, an eleventi generation des=ndent
of Richard Mather and grandson of the above mentioned Samuel Mather of Cleveland, dedicated his life
to udocking the un~ited energy contained in the tritium component of sea water. Working under kuis
Strauss at the WC he served two lengthy stints coordinating a competitive partnership of private academic efforts at Princeton, Harvard and the University of Chicago and govemmenti efforts at Lawrence
Livermore and ~S Alamos to be fwst to overcome the knotty problem of anomalous diffusion. A Cal Twh
and Berkeley educated atomic physicist himself he joined the Forrestal effort under ~nceton’s Lyman
Spitzer to test out his own ideas.
me tradition of competition and cross fertilization that Bishop hvoked from 1950to 1970,laid an
important foundation in completing the theoretical phase of the road to commercial fusion power. I wotid
venture that this accomplishment which can free the world from the fear of exhaustion of oil and coal will
be remembered along with the silicon chip as the significant scientfic accomplishment of the second half
of the twentieth century.
~ritan competitive partnership has come a long way since Richard A4ather’scontribution in the seventeenth centu~, but I believe the core principals remain and that he would be proud of the accomplishments of his descendants. I hope these exarnpies have been illustrative of the Mather family’s interpretation of the puritan ethic and competitive partnership and of the driving force that it brings to both personal
fu~ihnent and the public good.
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