John Roderick MacArthur (December 21,
1920-December 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 Northwestern University School of
Law
[356893] are named after him. He is the son of
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 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.
He is buried in
Graceland
Cemetery
in Chicago. His epitaph, written in English
using Greek letters, is
ονε φοοτ ιν φαιριελανδ ("
one foot in fairyland").
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."
[356894]
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.
Largely due to Rod MacArthur’s efforts, 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 that board
members were acting as executives of Bankers Lifeand 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 further 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.
After Rod MacArthur blocked the sale of the company for $116
million less, the board found a buyer for Bankers Life that was
willing to pay $384 million for the company.
[356895] Although this removed the Bankers Life
issue from the suit, there were still Rod MacArthur's allegations
that board members and key foundation executives were profiting at
the expense of the foundation.
Due to his terminal illness however, Rod MacArthur settled the suit
shortly before his death.
Rod MacArthur made two further 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”
[356896]. 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 John D. MacArthur died and set up his foundation,
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
[356897] and supports liberal causes, including the
Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., and the J.
Roderick
MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern
University School of Law
[356898]. 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”.
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