Newspaper Page Text
T H H S -° u T H E RN ISRAELITE
9
A Humanizer Of Statistics
A Great Sociologist Passes
GRACE JAFFE
Lee K. Frankel, the scientist, the
soi legist, was a dreamer at heart. Few
pie knew it, but then only a handful of
per >ns can lay rightful claim to having
been on intimate terms with the late vice-
pre ident of the Metropolitan Life Insur
ance Company. To the world at large Lee
K. Frankel was a universally recognized
authority on problems of social statistics
and health promotion, a man whose views
in insurance circles were looked upon as
the last word in practical sociology. When
he addressed a meeting of business direc
tors or when he was the guest speaker at
some Chamber of Commerce session, he
impressed the audience as an utterly sober,
austere, aloof, well-versed man of figures
who had an uncanny gift of illuminating
statistics and of giving them significance
and color. Rut the Lee K. Frankel of busi
ness men’s meetings and directors’ board
conferences was actually only a minor and
secondary part of the real Lee K. Frankel.
The man within was the man known to but
a few—and he was a lyric dreamer and a
man who cherished his own illusions.
Lr. Frankel was born in Philadelphia
sixty-four years ago, a son of Louis and
Aurelia Frankel. He attended the public
schools and graduated from the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania with the degree of
AS. as a young man of 20. Four years
later he received his Ph.D. from his Alma
Mater, and for five years he was an in-
'ruetor in chemistry at the University.
1 here is nothing exceptionally brilliant
about young Frankel’s career thus far.
a matter of fact when, at the age of
•’-» he came to New York as manager of
he United Hebrew Charities, he seemed
» he doomed to remain a paid social work-
all his life, despite his undeniable abili-
ics, his brilliant mind and his obvious or-
anizing gifts. But there was in Frankel
1 certain quiet dignity, a reserve that held
irn back in this world of self-appraisal,
lankel belonged to those who speak
I’ough their work. Yet so revolutionary
*' re the new standards of raising and
ending Jewish charity funds which he
roduced at the United Hebrew Charities
, at the non-Jewish public institution cir-
; e ? t°°k a great deal of notice of this
’ dadelphia chemist.
Before Frankel took hold of the United
Parities, the organization was run in the
sual German-Jewish way of the ’90s. A
•ard of directors assembled every now
n /l then, carefully read the budget sub-
‘ted by the secretary and made arrange-
ien ts to meet the budget for the next
orm ; Nobody was sufficiently curious to
Quire how the scientific phase of dispens
er charity progressed. The primary idea
as to handle as many cases of need w’ith
s little money as possible. Frankel was
‘‘ man who introduced an entirely new
A stem of case investigation and case han-
1 n 8f, a system that was later copied by
"n-Jewish organizations. He introduced
The sudden death of Dr. Lee K. Fratikcl,
! ice-I resident of the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company, and pioneer in health
promotion work, has affected the Jewish
and non-Jewish world. The author of this
article sketches not merely the biography
°f ^e man but attempts to give a picture
of the inner man in the aloof, austere per
sonality whom few knew.
DR. LEE K. FRANKEL
scientific charity, i. e., charity based on
statistics, but not statistics worked out in
some far-off study, but figures assembled
by personal investigation.
People who observed his far-reaching
work called him the great humanizer of
statistics. So far did his fame spread that
the Russel Sage Foundation captured him
in 1908 as a special investigator. He was in
his new position hardly a year, when he
startled the insurance world by preparing
to institute group insurance among fra
ternal organizations. He found himself
with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com
pany. This organization realized that it
was wiser for its future if Lee K. Frankel
would work for it than for somebody else.
That is the skeleton of Lee K. Kranel’s
steady climb, a continuous upward curve
that speaks volumes for his tenacity and
resourcefulness. During the last two dec
ades, when his position as head of the
health promotion department of the Met
ropolitan Life Insurance Company gave
him an opportunity to carry out his many
ideas for improving the mortality rate, he
revealed himself a sociologist with a keen
grasp of fundamental problems. He soon
tired of dry figures. He visualized with
his sensitive spirit the individual tragedies
that statistics conceal. He could never sup
press his ready sympathy for those in need.
It was his pleasure later in life to devote
himself to the improvement of health
through research in sanitation problems.
Child health questions attracted him above
all, and when President Hoover recently
appointed a planning committee for the
White House Conference on Child Health
and Protection, he named Dr. Frankel as
one of its first members.
But with all this work which undoubt
edly gave him a great deal of satisfaction,
he nevertheless found his real life work in
Jewish* activities. As expert on sanitation
in Jewish relief work in Eastern Europe
and Palestine, he showed an admirable
capacity for understanding the human an
gle in the Jewish problems in those coun
tries. While other experts came back with
voluminous reports and statistics on vital
ity and mortality, Lee K. Frankel brought
back his own impressions and his sugges
tions as to how to help individual cases.
A characteristic incident describing Dr.
Frankel occurred when, asked for his re
action to Palestine, after he had returned
from that country, he said to a journalist:
“I will tell you one story. In a Jewish
school, a teacher asked one of the little
girls in her class, in which she taught He
brew, English and other languages,
which of the languages she liked to study
best. The child immediately answered:
‘Hebrew.’ When asked why, she replied:
‘because it is the language God talks.’
That is the spirit of Palestine.” The jour
nalist is reported to have grumbled:
‘‘That guy isn't a scientist; he’s a poet.”
When Louis Marshall was using all his
energies to bring about a united front be
tween the Zionists and non-Zionists on a
common platform of rebuilding Palestine,
Dr. Frankel proved his ablest adjutant,
revealing himself a suave diplomat. His
lyric enthusiasm for the Holy Land was
contagious. It was always felt whenever
he spoke about Palestine, that the Jewish
work there appealed to him more than
anything else in the world. And only a
few weeks ago he was elevated to Co-
Chairmanship of the Council of the Jew
ish Agency!
A further indication of his grasp of
communal problems and his vision was
provided when he was chairman of the
executive committee of the Jewish Com
munal Survey of Greater New York, which
labored for three years. As a result of its
work, the present New York Jewish Fed
eration of Charities with its annual budget
of $10,000,000 was organized. That alone
would be sufficient achievement for any
one man.
But with all this, it will be hard to un
derstand Lee K. Frankel, unless it was
your privilege to know him well. He was
that rare combination of clear, logical
scientist and all-understanding humanita
rian. There was in him a native aristoc
racy that few (Please turn to page 14) -