V. Everit Macy

The life-story of two of the fellow-members on the list tonight is an answer to those foreign portrayers of Twentieth Century America who have discovered that nothing appeals to the American mind except accumulation of wealth, and that the only instinct of the man who has amassed a fortune is to bend all his energies to making it still greater. The philanthropy which gives money for promotion of good causes, for relief of poverty and for the lifting-up of helpless classes in the community, is familiar enough in our great American fortunes. Valentine Everit Macy had the money to give, and gave it abundantly; but that was only a prelude to his entry into the field of personal service for his fellow-men. At the age of forty-three, when many men of wealth are planning for comfortable retirement, Macy began his career of exacting personal labor for the poor in Westchester. When he accepted in 1914 the post of Superintendent of the Poor, to be followed by work as Commissioner of Charities and Corrections and as Commissioner of Public Welfare, it was said that he withdrew from membership in two dozen business committees or directorates. Ten years of arduous activity in these places of responsibility transformed the picture, leaving the county of his choice an example in the solution of numerous grave social problems. This task, largely completed, he relinquished only to take over the planning and administration of the Westchester County Parks. He could not surrender his interest in the public welfare.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1931 Century Association Yearbook