Financially independent man

John Hazen White has political clout and committed workers
-- and he's not even running for office

by Elissa Silverman

John Hazen White, the Barrington businessman-turned-political-maverick and the lone impetus behind the government watchdog group Red Alert!, boldly emerged on the political landscape in 1992, when his kind of straight-shooting, cut-the-crap talk about how government should work was in full chic.

With his series of irreverent yet folksy full-page newspaper advertisements condemning Rhode Island politics as usual, White might have just ridden the anti-government wave and wiped out. But five years later, White and Red Alert! remain a powerful force in Rhode Island's political consciousness, particularly among the state's elected officials.

Even if the group no longer legally exists. Unbeknownst to most Rhode Islanders, on April 2, 1996, Red Alert! mutated into two separate non-profit corporations: the Thunder and Lightning Research and Education Foundation, Inc. and the Telling Truths Foundation, Inc. The breakup was hardly rooted in animosity. Thunder and Lightning was actually just a new name for the Rediscover Rhode Island Foundation, another largely unknown Red Alert! offspring.

And since White was the only card-carrying member of any of the above organizations, the issue was not one of turf but tax law. Describing its mission to the IRS as exclusively educational, Thunder and Lightning qualified for tax purposes as a 501(c)3 organization. Telling Truths, on the other hand, would remain White's means of, well, telling the truth and taking sides on specific issues. That made it a 501(c)4.

What difference does a number make? For White, who declined to be interviewed for this story, possibly a whole lot of money. The incorporation of the Thunder and Lightning Foundation as a 501(c)3 set the wheels in motion for an auspicious financial situation -- his contributions to the private foundation were now tax-deductible.

White's son, John Hazen White, Jr., according to a 1993 Rhode Island Monthly profile, clearly had been concerned about the amount of money his father had funneled into Red Alert!. "I sat him [White, Sr.] down one day and said, `Let's review the Red Alert! finances.' He told me, `Don't worry about it.' And that was the end of the discussion."

But more than 200 full-page newspaper advertisements and 11 television shows later, the elder White apparently has learned some new tricks.

When he put down his money for the first Red Alert! ad in 1992, White paid out of his own pocket, because he was, as the saying goes, mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Now that Thunder and Lightning is recognized as a 501(c)3 private foundation, White can still be mad as hell and qualify for as much as a 30 percent deduction from his adjusted gross income for his charitable contributions.

White also has emitted another signal that he is becoming more of a savvy political player. Up until a few months ago, Red Alert!'s home office was the same as its founder's -- at White's manufacturing firm, Taco, Inc. But as his foundations became more prominent (White recently announced his intentions to recruit 100,000 members for a new citizens action group called "People Speak"), housing them in an executive suite at Taco gave the impression of small potatoes. So this spring, Red Alert! and its non-profit entities moved into new quarters in Providence's jewelry district.

No doubt, this separate office gave the burgeoning organizations more political credibility. And in that vein, White hired a seasoned grass-roots veteran, Karen Salvatore, as their full-time executive director. Salvatore, the former director of DOT Watch, a respected watchdog of the state Department of Transportation, came equipped with an accomplished background, lots of connections in the non-profit community, and a ton of creative energy.

"I was out there in the trenches, just one little person trying to take on a department. Who was I? I was a housewife home with babies," Salvatore modestly states, downplaying her impact on DOT affairs. "He was a successful businessman. He encouraged me."

But it wasn't just White's personality that attracted Salvatore. "After six years of raising my own money, doing all the groundwork, and having very little resources, I was burned out of doing DOT Watch," she says. "The prospect of working with Mr. White was very exciting, because of the prospect that I wouldn't have to do what I dreaded the most -- raising money."

In the era of Jefferson, the wealthy -- men, that is -- were considered model statesmen, because they appeared to be insulated from temptation and self-interest and were expected, therefore, to act solely in the interest of the common good. But White's money apparently has had an inverse effect: most elected officials tiptoe around the philanthropist, afraid to criticize him or his groups -- at least on the record.

"They're afraid of him," says former Rhode Island governor Bruce Sundlun. "He'll use his money and publicity to criticize them."

Even typically garrulous academics, who supposedly operate in the ivory tower, clam up at the mention of John Hazen White or Red Alert!. Darrell West, a prominent commentator on Rhode Island politics and a professor of political science at Brown University, told the Phoenix, "I'd prefer not to comment because of Mr. White's philanthropic ties to the university." West, if you don't know already, happens to direct the John Hazen White, Sr. Public Opinion Laboratory at the university.

On September 2, 1993, Maureen Moakley, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, wrote a scathing op-ed in the Providence Journal-Bulletin about Red Alert!. "There are dangers that forms of `direct democracy' can slip into demagoguery -- defined as a person or group that gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions and prejudices of people," she warned. "The latest Red Alert! wave of print and radio ads is a case in point. While the intentions of its founder, John Hazen White, Sr., may be well placed, the sensationalist nature of the ads, the wording of questions, and reported `results' are inaccurate."

But when asked last week to elaborate on these points, Moakley told the Phoenix, "I'd rather not get involved in this." And there's a good reason for that: Moakley teaches courses at the John Hazen White, Sr. Center for Ethics and Public Policy at URI.

Whether intentional or not, then, White's generous philanthropy seems to have a paralyzing effect on political discourse. And as White's groups continue to gain credibility, this reluctance to speak freely could have an adverse impact on exactly what White is trying to achieve: efficient and effective government.

What's more, the contention that Red Alert! -- now the Thunder and Lightning Foundation -- presents a balanced view to voters is somewhat suspect as well.

"Whenever I speak to an outside group, the very first question is always, `What is his [White's] hidden agenda,' " says John Ricottilli, Red Alert!'s omnipresent volunteer and an executive vice president at Taco, Inc. "First of all, I tell them that he's 83 and, second, that he just wants to give something back to the state." A third answer could be that White's agenda is not that hidden at all.

White's very first Red Alert! in the Providence Journal-Bulletin, for instance, was not an argument for more effective and efficient government, but a plea to Rhode Islanders to call their legislators and urge them to oppose a striker replacement bill.

The bill, then pending in the state Senate, would have prohibited companies from hiring permanent replacement workers during a strike. "This bill ties the hands of industry and creates an anti-business climate which Rhode Island cannot afford in desperate times," the ad claimed.

Why was the issue so important to White? Taco, Inc., White's company, was the site of one of the longest strikes in Rhode Island history. Eventually, the strike fizzled -- after the union representing the striking machinists was decertified after Taco hired enough replacement workers to vote against the union in the election.

White's staunchly free-market, pro-business agenda comes more into focus when you consider Red Alert!'s perspective on taxes. Taxes are repeatedly emphasized in Red Alert! ads as an indisputable blight on the body politic. "What we need," an ad on July 9, 1992 argues, is "lower taxes, not higher . . . . "

On July 16, 1995, another ad stated, "High taxes and anti-growth policies are chasing capital and productive citizens out of the state." Still another presents the Red Alert! agenda as advocating "minimum government support" and "maximum private incentive." Such policy suggestions, of course, sound suspiciously like supply-side economics.

Although the theory that cutting taxes is the most effective catalyst to spur economic growth has been widely discredited by mainstream economists, there are still a few notable outposts where this logic thrives. One is the Cato Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank espousing "free ideas and free markets," with a heavy emphasis on the latter.

And in fact, one of White's key policy advisors is the director of fiscal policy studies at Cato, Stephen Moore. Moore is an unadulterated supply-sider. He has written numerous articles defending the theory and has served as one of US Representative Dick Armey's point men in crafting a flat-tax proposal, a supply sider's idea of Utopia.

White hooked up with Moore five years ago, after reading an article of Moore's in the Wall Street Journal, and the two men have been close friends and intellectual fellow travelers ever since. "It was a marriage made in heaven," says Moore.

Earlier this year, White and his wife, Happy, pledged $1 million to support Moore's work in the fiscal policies division at Cato. And White often asks Moore to speak to local business groups. "It is my assessment, in comparing the tax code of Rhode Island, that the state has one of the three most anti-investment, anti-work, anti-jobs tax systems in the 50 states," Moore informed the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce in a 1995 speech.

To be fair, White's organizations clearly have spurred civic interest in some largely ignored issues. Red Alert!'s -- as well as White's -- primary mission, says Ricottilli, is to stimulate public awareness of various issues of importance. Increased familiarity with these issues will encourage more people to express their views to elected officials, and this ultimately will make government more efficient and effective, Ricottilli argues.

"We're not trying to craft an opinion," he says. "We've taken great pains to present both sides of an issue -- or all sides of an issue." Only problem is who gets to pick what that issue is.