Free Republic

Monday, Nov. 28, 2005 11:26 a.m. ESTJohn M. Olin Foundation to Close After 52 Years of Philanthropy The John M. Olin Foundation, one of the great underwriters of the conservative movement, is shutting down after 52 years and hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to right-wing causes. Industrialist Olin wanted the foundation to eventually disband because he "feared that if it were to exist in perpetuity, it would eventually be captured by hostile forces,” John J. Miller, author of "A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America,” writes in the New York Times’ Op-Ed section....

WASHINGTON, May 28 - Without it, the Federalist Society might not exist, nor its network of 35,000 conservative lawyers. Economic analysis might hold less sway in American courts. The premier idea factories of the right, from the Hoover Institution to the Heritage Foundation, would have lost millions of dollars in core support. And some classics of the conservative canon would have lost their financier, including Allan Bloom's lament of academic decline and Charles Murray's attacks on welfare. Part Medici, part venture capitalist, the John M. Olin Foundation has spent three decades financing the intellectual rise of the right and exciting...

Sometime this fall, the board of the John M. Olin Foundation will meet one last time and approve a final round of grants. By the end of the year, the foundation will release its staff and close its office. There will be a few checks to write in 2006, and perhaps several more as late as 2007 or even 2008. But for all practical purposes, the foundation will shut down — and one of the conservative movement’s most important institutions will cease to exist.Tonight, in New York City, the Philanthropy Roundtable will host an event honoring the achievements of the...