Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk Read Free Book Online Page A

five present – said that he would undertake ⅕ or $5,000 . . . The other members of the Society were not involved . . . Some of them didn’t even know that there was a deficit.
    Though he and his society were almost entirely dependent on the money thus received from wealthy businessmen, Adler urged his disciples to accord little respect to making money. Being wealthy might
seem
to be ‘supremely enviable’, he wrote, but ‘the business of wealth-getting, and of wealth-enjoyment, when viewed at close range, turns out to be a very different matter. Its effect is almost inevitably unfortunate, not only on society at large, but on the mind and character of the wealthy themselves.’ Indeed, he added: ‘I would urge the principle of self-limitation in regard to wealth’, and he made this ‘plea to the wealthy’:
    The first step to take, if they would set themselves right, is to live in the midst of superfluous wealth as if they were not the possessors of it; that is, to take for their own use only what they require for the essentials of a civilised life, and to regard the rest as a deposit for the general good, of which they themselves are not to be the beneficiaries.
    By donating $5,000 to the Ethical Culture Society whenever Adler asked him to, Oppenheimer was not only helping the Society, but also enabling himself to live a more ethically cultured life by shedding some potentially harmful superfluous wealth. ‘The habit of luxurious living is eating into the vitals of society, is defiling the family, and corrupting the state,’ Adler preached. But, of course, opinions will vary as to what exactly the ‘essentials of a civilised life’ are, and therefore how much wealth is required in order to provide them. Where is one to draw the line between the things that are an essential part of being civilised and the things that are mere luxuries?
    Julius and Ella Oppenheimer, though never ostentatious, certainly led what many would consider a luxurious life. Soon after they were married they moved into an apartment at 250 West 94th Street, just down the road from Ella’s mother. It was a fairly large apartment in a fairly smart neighbourhood, but nothing very out of the ordinary. Where, however, they went way beyond what most people would regard as being
essential
to a civilised life was in the furnishing and decorating of the apartment, particularly with regard to the paintings that adorned its walls. It was in those days customary among wealthy German Jewish New York families to have a private art collection. In this respect, as in so many others, the members of ‘Our Crowd’ tended to veer on the side of conservatism, caution and conformity. Abby, the central character in Emanie Sachs’s
Red Damask
, sneers that they ‘haven’t enough physical courage to go in for sports like the rich Gentiles, and a little too much brains. So they go in for art collection with an expert to help. They wouldn’t risk a penny on their own tastes.’
    Left to his own devices, Julius might have fallen into the kind of conservatism mocked by Sachs, but in Ella he had his own expert, one who, having studied Impressionism in Paris, was certainly
not
afraid to risk money on her own taste. The result was an extraordinary private art collection that was to be the pride of the family for generations. It included a Rembrandt etching, paintings by Vuillard, Derain and Renoir, no fewer than three Van Goghs –
Enclosed Field with Rising Sun
,
First Steps (After Millet)
and
Portrait of Adeline Ravoux
– and a ‘blue period’ Picasso,
Mother and Child
.
    The private contemplation of fine works of art might be seen as the very opposite of the way of life promoted by the Ethical Culture Society, a society that emphasised social responsibility and the importance of the
deed
, of doing something practical to help those less well off than oneself. This was a society that set up educational programmes for the working class; that put forward