fraud. He ruins the man who has befriended him and steals away his
business. Vast railroad operations next claim his attention. He becomes
a bird of prey in the financial world. One by one he forsakes his
principles; he becomes a hypocrite, posing, even to himself. With the
degeneration of his moral character come domestic troubles. His wife
grows to despise him. One of his sons becomes a spendthrift; the other a
forger. His daughter, Helen, alone retains any affection for him. His
attempts to force his family into the most exclusive circles subject him
and them to mortifying rebuffs, for all his millions cannot overcome the
ill-repute of his name. At last, with his hundred millions won, his
house the finest in America, his name a name to conjure with in the
financial world, he realizes that the goal he has reached was not worth
the race. Still he clings to his old ways, and dies in a fit of anger,
haggling over his daughter’s dowry.
$1.50.
McClure, Phillips & Co.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Changed ‘idea if it’ to ‘idea of it’ on p. 125.
2. Changed ‘twenty policeman’ to ‘twenty policemen’ on p. 177.
3. Silently corrected typographical errors.
4. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Shame of the Cities, by Lincoln Steffens