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The 116-Year Question
In 1999, the Trust's Own President Filed a Court Petition Saying the Surplus Had "Again Grown." Not for the First Time. Again. Twenty-Five Years Later the Same Surplus Is Still Growing. The 2006 Pennsylvania Supreme Court Closed the Only Door That Could Have Changed That. The Children Have No Votes. This Is Why the Four Words Have Never Been Enforced — And Probably Won't Be.
THE CHOCOLATE MACHINE — Post 8 | February 2026
"The Managers must admit as many qualifying children as capacity and income permit."
— Milton S. Hershey, Deed of Trust, November 15, 1909
Post 1: The Gift — What Milton Hershey actually said. What the trust actually heard.
Post 2: The Surplus — 91 years of "embarrassingly large" accumulation
Post 3: The Board — Same people. Two boards. Multiple scandals.
Post 4: The Sale — $12.5 billion, 55 days, 10 trustees departed.
Post 5: The Billion Sitting Idle — $1.2 billion. $900 million reclassified. The math.
Post 6: The Children Who Didn't Get In — The criteria. The gap. The human cost.
Post 7: The Maneuver — Catherine Hershey Schools: what they are, what they aren't.
Post 8: The 116-Year Question — Why the four words have never been enforced. ← FINAL POST
The Enforcement Architecture: Who Can Actually Act
Enforcement of a charitable trust in Pennsylvania follows a legal framework that has been litigated to its limits by the parties most motivated to change it. The framework is simple, and its simplicity is the problem.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL:
Sole primary enforcer of charitable trusts in Pennsylvania
Statutory authority to investigate, seek reform, file suit
Has investigated twice (2010-2013, 2015-2016)
Both investigations produced negotiated settlements
Neither settlement addressed enrollment mandate enforcement
AG is an elected official with political incentives
THE DAUPHIN COUNTY ORPHANS’ COURT:
Has jurisdiction over trust modifications (cy-pres)
Can approve changes to the deed’s terms
Has approved: 1963 hospital, 2021 preschool initiative
Can be petitioned by the AG or the trust itself
Cannot act independently — requires a petition
THE BOARD OF MANAGERS / HERSHEY TRUST COMPANY:
Hold fiduciary duty to enforce the deed
ARE the trust — no external trustee exists
Cannot be compelled to expand enrollment without court order
Have sole discretion over admissions and capacity decisions
THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION:
Filed lawsuit in 2005 seeking enforcement standing
Commonwealth Court: granted standing (2005)
Pennsylvania Supreme Court: reversed (2006) — NO STANDING
Dissent called the majority’s holding “a quantum leap”
away from 300 years of Pennsylvania precedent
Result: permanently closed the only citizen enforcement door
ENROLLED STUDENTS:
Are trust beneficiaries — but only while enrolled
Upon leaving school, cease to be beneficiaries (per deed)
Have no standing to enforce the deed’s enrollment mandate
Are the people most harmed by under-enrollment
Have no legal mechanism to demand more of them be admitted
UNENROLLED QUALIFYING CHILDREN:
The specific victims of the enrollment gap
Have no legal standing whatsoever
Cannot petition any court
Cannot contact the AG with enforceable claims
Are the people the deed was written to serve
Have zero institutional voice in their own fate
The Word That Ends the Argument: "Again"
DATE: January 20, 1999
DOCUMENT: Petition for Cy Pres Award, Dauphin County Orphans’ Court
SIGNATORIES: Robert C. Vowler, President, Hershey Trust Company
AND: Dr. William L. Lepley, President, Milton Hershey School
THE VERIFIED STATEMENT (sworn under oath):
“Petitioners believe and therefore aver that the School Trust’s
accumulated income fund has again grown to the point where it
is more than sufficient to carry out the Settlors’ specific
charitable purpose (i.e., the maintenance and perpetual operation
of the School), and will continue to grow further beyond the
amount necessary until either the Deed of Trust is modified,
or the amount is reduced through a cy pres award, or both.”
SOURCE: In re Milton Hershey School Trust, 807 A.2d 324
(Pa. Cmwlth. Ct. 2002) — direct quotation from court record
WHAT “AGAIN” MEANS:
Not “for the first time.” Not “unexpectedly.”
The surplus had been at this level before.
The trust’s own president knew it.
He filed it under oath.
The court record preserves it permanently.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER:
The 1999 cy-pres proposal (institute for needy children research) did not proceed.
Enrollment in 1999: roughly the same as the 1950s (per ProPublica).
By 2021: surplus exceeded $1.2 billion.
By 2024: assets exceeded $23 billion.
The surplus grew again. And again. And again.
THE VERDICT:
The trust’s own leadership, in sworn testimony, acknowledged
in 1999 that the surplus was “more than sufficient” and
would “continue to grow further beyond the amount necessary”
without structural change. They filed this in court.
Twenty-five years later: $23 billion. 2,100 students.
$1 billion in unspent income. They were right about the trajectory.
They were the trajectory.
The 2006 Supreme Court Decision: The Door That Closed Permanently
Between 2005 and 2006, the Milton Hershey School Alumni Association — the organization founded by Milton Hershey himself in 1930, composed mostly of school graduates — litigated its right to enforce the deed in Pennsylvania courts. The stakes were existential: if the Alumni Association had standing, any group of graduates could hold the board accountable. If it didn't, only the AG could act.
The Commonwealth Court said yes in 2005. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said no in 2006.
CASE: In re Milton Hershey School and Hershey Trust Company
COURT: Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 2006
QUESTION: Does the Alumni Association have legal standing to
enforce the deed of trust?
COMMONWEALTH COURT (2005): YES
Special interest doctrine applies. Association has sufficient
connection to the trust’s purpose to have standing.
PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT (2006): NO
Association is not named in the deed.
Association is not an intended beneficiary.
Association’s interest is “no different from that of the general public.”
“The Association’s intensity of concern is real and commendable,
but it is not a substitute for an actual interest.”
THE DISSENT’S WARNING:
“To now give the Association legal rights that were expressly
excluded by the Settlor of the Trust is a dangerous expansion
of standing not supported by over 300 years of case law
within the Commonwealth.”
WHAT THIS MEANS IN PRACTICE:
The graduates of the school Milton Hershey built for poor children
have no legal right to demand that the school serve more poor children.
The children the trust was built to serve have no legal standing.
The only party with legal standing to enforce the deed is the AG.
The AG is an elected politician.
The door closed in 2006. It has not reopened.
Why the AG Won't Enforce the Enrollment Mandate
Two Pennsylvania Attorneys General have investigated the Hershey Trust. Tom Corbett opened the first investigation in 2010. Kathleen Kane resolved it in 2013. Josh Shapiro (now governor) inherited the second investigation and concluded it in 2016. Both investigations focused on self-dealing, lavish spending, and board governance — not on the enrollment mandate.
No Pennsylvania AG has ever gone to the Orphans' Court to demand that the Milton Hershey School admit more students. No AG has ever argued that the trust's 1.5% spending rate violates the deed's mandate to serve "as many as income permits." No AG has ever treated the gap between 2,100 enrolled students and what $23 billion in assets could theoretically support as a legal enforcement problem rather than a policy preference.
There are rational explanations for this restraint. Courts are reluctant to second-guess charitable board decisions that are within the board's granted discretion. The deed explicitly grants the board "decision-making responsibility for all aspects of running the School." A court could reasonably conclude that enrollment levels are within that discretion. The AG, knowing this, may calculate that litigation over enrollment numbers would fail while consuming political capital.
There is also the political calculus. The Hershey Company is one of Pennsylvania's largest employers. The community of Hershey depends on the trust's stability. An aggressive enforcement action that destabilized the trust's finances or governance could harm the very community the political environment rewards AGs for protecting. The children the deed serves have no equivalent organized constituency. They have no votes to deliver.
A court order compelling expanded enrollment would be legally complex. The deed grants the board discretion over admissions and capacity. A court would need to find that the board’s exercise of that discretion — choosing 2,100 over more — violates the deed’s mandatory language (“must admit as many… as income permits”). That is a viable legal argument, but it requires a willing plaintiff, a willing AG, and a court prepared to override charitable board discretion on spending levels. None of those three conditions currently exist.
Infrastructure takes time to build. Even if a court ordered expanded enrollment, physical capacity cannot be created instantly. Student homes, classrooms, medical facilities, and trained staff require years of construction and hiring. A realistic enrollment expansion from 2,100 to, say, 5,000 students would require years of planning and hundreds of millions in capital expenditure. The trust’s assets support that expenditure. The timeline is real.
The board’s perpetuity argument has some legal force. A court protecting future generations of poor children might agree that spending 1.5% preserves the trust’s capacity to serve children born in 2080, 2150, 2200. The deed says “in perpetuity.” A conservative court might read “in perpetuity” as justifying conservative spending. That reading requires ignoring the word “must” in “must admit as many as income permits” — but courts have ignored inconvenient mandatory language before.
The IRS route is theoretically available. A federal challenge to the trust’s tax-exempt status — arguing that accumulating a $900 million rainy day fund and serving 0.7% of the documented childcare need does not constitute operation “exclusively for charitable purposes” — has never been formally pursued. The IRS could theoretically investigate. It has not done so publicly. This remains the only enforcement mechanism that hasn’t been tried.
What Milton Hershey Would Recognize
Milton Hershey died in 1945. He would not recognize the $23 billion trust. He would not recognize the Fortune 500 corporation his chocolate company became. He would not recognize Hersheypark, the Hotel Hershey, the medical center, or the arena. He did not envision any of those things when he signed the deed in 1909.
He would recognize the school. The student homes arranged in clusters. The vocational education alongside academic courses. The children from difficult circumstances given a safe place to live and learn. He would recognize the mission because he designed it — and because it is, genuinely, being fulfilled for 2,100 children every year.
What he would not recognize is the ratio. In 1918, when he donated his entire fortune, the trust's income was modest and enrollment was in the hundreds. The ratio of income to enrollment was tight — perhaps even strained. Every dollar of income was needed. Every child who could be served, was.
Today the ratio has inverted entirely. The trust generates hundreds of millions in income annually. It spends $370 million on 2,100 children. It accumulates hundreds of millions more. It reclassifies the accumulated income as a reserve fund. It funds six preschool centers for 900 additional children while $1 billion in principal income grows.
Milton Hershey said in 1923: "Well, I have no children — that is, no heirs. So I decided to make the orphan boys of the United States my heirs."
He meant all of them. As many as possible. The deed says so.
116 YEARS OF LITIGATION ABOUT THE HERSHEY TRUST:
1963: Cy-pres petition for hospital — approved
1999: Cy-pres petition for needy children research — not pursued
2002: Cy-pres petition blocking Wrigley sale — court agreed
2003-2006: Alumni Association standing litigation — standing denied
2010-2013: AG investigation — settlement on board conduct
2015-2016: AG investigation — settlement on board composition
2021: Cy-pres petition for Catherine Hershey Schools — approved
2021: Bob Heist lawsuit for financial records — resolved privately
THE QUESTION NEVER ASKED IN ANY OF THESE PROCEEDINGS:
“Does the trust’s current enrollment level — 2,100 students —
satisfy the deed’s mandatory requirement to admit as many
qualifying children as income permits?”
WHO COULD ASK IT: The Pennsylvania Attorney General
Why they haven’t: No AG has determined it serves their interests
When they might: If the political calculus changes
What it would require: An AG willing to antagonize the trust,
the Hershey Company, the community of Hershey, and the board —
on behalf of poor children who don’t vote and don’t organize
THE HONEST ANSWER:
The question probably won’t be asked.
Not because it isn’t a good question.
Not because the deed doesn’t support it.
Because the people with standing to ask it
have more to lose by asking it than by not.
The Finding
Eight posts. One trust. One deed. Four words. One finding.
Milton Hershey gave away everything he had built — his chocolate company, his fortune, his name, his legacy — and wrote a mandate so simple it required only four words to state completely: as many as possible. He meant it. The deed says he meant it. His own words in interviews confirm he meant it. The trust he established has, for 116 years, honored that mandate in its narrowest possible interpretation while growing the assets in their most expansive possible direction.
The gap between those two trajectories — assets growing toward $24 billion, enrollment fixed near 2,100 — is not the result of bad intentions. The board members who run this trust are not villains. Many are deeply committed to the children they serve. The school itself is extraordinary. The children inside it receive something genuinely life-changing.
The gap is the result of a structure. A structure in which the people who benefit from managing $23 billion are also the people who decide how many children to serve with it. A structure in which the sole external enforcer is an elected official with no electoral incentive to prioritize the children the deed names. A structure in which three redirections of accumulated surplus — 1963, 1999, 2021 — each produced a new use for the children's income that was not more children at the school. A structure in which the 2006 Pennsylvania Supreme Court permanently closed the only enforcement door that might have applied external pressure on enrollment numbers.
That structure — not the intentions of the people within it — produced 116 years of "again."
It will produce more.
The Land Grab: NFL owners used public subsidies to build private real estate empires.
The Endless Frontier: Every major American industry used public resources to build private monopolies.
The Endowment Machine: Universities trained the lawyers and funded the PE firms that extracted from the rest.
The Chocolate Machine: A man gave everything he had to poor children in 1909.
The structure he created to serve them has been serving something else for 116 years.
The structure matters more than the intentions.
Across 200 years. Across 35 posts. Across four series.
The same finding. Every time.
Milton Hershey said: as many as possible.
The structure said: 2,100.
The surplus said: again.
The court said: only the AG can enforce it.
The AG said: we are monitoring.
The children said nothing.
They have no mechanism to say anything at all.
PRIMARY SOURCES FOR THIS POST:
In re Milton Hershey School Trust, 807 A.2d 324 (Pa. Cmwlth. Ct. 2002): Direct quotation of the January 20, 1999 cy-pres petition filed by Vowler and Lepley — “again grown to the point where it is more than sufficient.” This is the most important primary source of the series. Confirmed via FindLaw case law database. In re Milton Hershey School and Hershey Trust Company, 911 A.2d 1258 (Pa. 2006): Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling denying Alumni Association standing. All holdings, quotations, and dissent language confirmed via FindLaw and Quimbee case law databases. In re Milton Hershey School Trust, 867 A.2d 674 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2005): Commonwealth Court ruling granting Alumni Association standing — reversed on appeal. Spotlight PA (April 2021): Confirmed enforcement architecture — AG as sole overseer, history of investigations, board’s dual structure, no federal oversight. ProPublica/Philadelphia Inquirer (October 2021): Confirmed “again” context, enrollment history, 1999 petition background. Milton Hershey 1923 interview quote: Confirmed via Hershey Community Archives, as cited in ProPublica. AG investigation histories (2013 settlement, 2016 settlement): Confirmed via Capital Research Center and contemporaneous reporting.
THE COMPLETE SERIES:
Post 1: The Gift — the deed, the four words, the 1918 donation
Post 2: The Surplus — 91 years, the 1998 law, the 1999 moment
Post 3: The Board — dual structure, two AG investigations, Bob Heist
Post 4: The Sale — 2002 Wrigley bid, 10,000 protesters, 2016 Mondelez
Post 5: The Billion — $1.2B accumulated, $900M reclassified, the math
Post 6: The Children — admissions criteria, the IQ floor, the gap
Post 7: The Maneuver — Catherine Hershey Schools, 0.7% of the need
Post 8: The 116-Year Question — “again,” the closed door, the finding
THE STANDARD HELD ACROSS ALL EIGHT POSTS:
Every fact sourced to a primary document.
Every counterargument presented before the structural argument.
Every inference labeled as inference.
Every documented fact labeled as documented.
The receipts shown every time.
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