Far off in the distance shines the goal of present human
ambition.
It is a shining, golden light. Toward that light the millions
struggle, trampling each other, sacrificing everything in the
harsh fight for the dollar.
Here and there a preacher thunders, here and there a philosopher
proses against the money struggle. But they might as well
whisper at the brink of Niagara. And often the preacher changes
his thundering when a RICH church calls him, often the
philosopher grasps the first chance to forget philosophy in Wall
Street.
The men admired to-day are the men who have made millions--some
are admired because they find excitement in giving the millions
away, others because they silently pile more millions upon the
others already gained.
"Society," the class devoted to pleasure, consists now, in
America, of those who have much money.
Literary success depends upon the money which the writer
accumulates.
The man talked about is he who has SOLD a hundred thousand
books.
The rich boy at school is followed by toadies. In college he
learns contempt for human nature from the sycophancy of others.
"Representatives" of the People may be found dogging the
footsteps of those who need to buy laws, or to steal the people's
rights. ----
It is a fierce and remorseless climb up the steep road to wealth.
There are many corpses, many crimes, many broken hearts, haggard
faces and bitter disappointments on that road.
The man with the "Good-money-making idea" struggles on with it
over the bodies of suicides and of those who have fallen in
despair.
At the bottom of the road the murderer plies his trade with knife
or poison--to make money. And the murderer who has tried for
MUCH money calls forth special interest and special
privileges, special new trials, special newspaper headings.
At the top of the road to wealth, another, more intelligent
class, work with equally remorseless energy. They murder no
individual. But they rob entire classes of society.
They tax others to fatten their pockets--they add to the cost of
food that children eat--they coin human life into cash--smoothly
and nicely, using law-makers as tools. Envy and admiration are
theirs--such admiration as the retail murderer can never earn.
----
The struggle for money is the struggle of THE WHOLE WORLD to-day.
And of the money-making movement, as of ALL WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENTS,
there is a side that is good and necessary.
Divine wisdom guides the world, and the human race, working out
its destiny in seeming blindness, is not allowed to wander from
the track of actual progress.
The money-making mania is one phase of human advancement.
This is the age of industrial progress. Money is simply the
means of perfecting industry. It is human labor condensed and
put into compact, transferable shape.
The man with the hundred millions can build the great railroad
across the continent. There is no more important work now than
the building of that road.
The man with the thousand millions can control the great oil
trust and a dozen other trusts. He taxes the people--but his
hundreds of millions do an important and necessary work.
It is well for us all that such a man has sacrificed health,
digestion, happiness and all idea of self-indulgence to the
accumulation of a vast industrial army of dollars.
The scramble for money, looked at without understanding, is a
horrid sight. But horrid also is the sight of a battle that
frees slaves.
When the battle of money shall end, the score will be on the
right side of humanity's ledger.
A few forgotten billionaires will have struggled and died. Some
millions of men will have died disappointed.
But industry will have been brought to perfection. Universities,
libraries and other benefactions will abound, pleading for
recognition of the money-making dyspeptics. Human ingenuity will
have contrived some means for freeing men's minds from the dread
of destitution.
The money struggle will have ended and humanity will be much
better off, much further advanced--as it is at the end of all
great and painful struggles.