rich to any great extent, because its effects are necessarily slow.
Indeed, they will not be felt for many years to come. Yet I would point
out one or two phases of this question that seem to me to be intensely
interesting and vastly important. In the first place, the opportunities
for the making of gigantic fortunes are being limited more and more by
the world-embracing activities of those who already possess gigantic
wealth.
Let any man discover in the mountains of Mexico, in the forbidding
ridges of Alaska, or on the plains of the Yukon, great new deposits of
iron, or coal, or oil, and immediately, almost before the news of such
discovery has reached the world at large, a dozen secret agents rush to
investigate. They represent the Pearsons, of London; the Guggenheims or
Morgans, of New York; the Rockefellers or the Rothschilds, of New York
or Germany. They are the first in the field; they preëmpt, for fortunes
already far beyond competition, the opportunity of making a tremendous
fortune out of the new discovery.
Think of the raw materials of commerce--sugar, meat, oil, iron, coal,
copper, cotton, wheat, corn, lumber--is it not absolutely true that
in the manufacture and exploitation of this tremendous mass of the
raw material of wealth the possibility of amassing enormous fortunes
is almost hopelessly limited by the activities and the world-girdling
power of capitalist groups already far beyond the reach of competition?
The free land of America is gone. All these great staples that have
been in generations past the vehicles in which men have been carried
upon the road to lordly fortunes are already in the hands of a few
hundred families. This fact, sinister as it undoubtedly is in its
broader aspect upon the economic conditions of the country, must
certainly tend to eliminate more and more the possibility for the
creation of additional gigantic industrial fortunes in this country. In
so far as this is true it is a very important item indeed among the
forces that tend toward the elimination of the idle rich.
More than this, as I have pointed out already in a phrase, the growing
knowledge on the part of the people of the ways and means by which
they have been exploited for the creation of wealth will surely
prevent any further long-continued growth of this same process. Men
are being sent up to congress year by year sworn to break up and
destroy the coördinate political machine that has made possible the
growth of the power of the trusts. Earnest fighters like La Follette
may well be watched, for though no little of his work and his talk
is based on fallacy, yet in this at least he represents the temper
of the whole United States, that he is a bitter and an ardent enemy
of the concentration of wealth. The agitation over the Guggenheim
claims in Alaska, the bursts of popular acclaim over land-fraud
prosecutions in the West, the sardonic joy of the people over the
retrieving of enormous coal land areas stolen by railroads, the warm
enthusiasm of the West for government reclamation, conservation, and
preëmption--these are signs of the times all pointing in the one
direction.
They do not mark the end of the idle rich, to-day existent. They
do point unmistakably toward the prevention of a new crop of great
American fortunes won through exploitation of government property and
popular rights. If you couple with them the ever-growing movement
toward Socialism, and the hundred and one private propaganda along
strange and often faulty economic lines, you cannot help but feel as
I feel, that even if there were a revolution, in a hundred years, when
the present great fortunes of America are subdivided, split up, and
scattered among a thousand heirs, the wealth of America will certainly
not be held ninety-five per cent. in the hands of five per cent. of the
people and five per cent. in the hands of the rest of the people. And
it is self-evident that since the gathering together of wealth in the
hands of the few gave us the idle rich, the natural scattering of that
wealth into more and more hands as the years go on must tend in the
other direction.
_The days of the idle rich in America are as a tale that is told.
To-morrow in this land there will be one of two things, either an
evolution or a revolution._
_... The class I represent will again be merged into and
assimilated by the body of the nation.... We shall reënact in this
land some of the most terrible tragedies of history._
_Chapter Eleven_
THE END OF THE STORY
We have come to the end of the story. The days of the idle rich in
America are as a tale that is told. To-morrow in this land there will
be one of two things: either an evolution or a revolution. Either by
one of those characteristically swift and marvellous changes for which
the history of our race is noted, the class which I represent will
again be merged into and assimilated by the body of the nation, as it
was half a century ago, or we shall stand face to face with the forces
of anarchy, Socialism, trade unionism, and a hundred other cults that
either do represent or claim to represent the spirit of this mighty
people, and we shall reënact in this land some of the most terrible
tragedies of history.
I do not believe a middle course is possible. I know, of course, that
the rank and file of the class I represent are blind and careless. I
know that many of them, if they read this book, will lay it aside with
a smile, calling it hysterical, calling it untrue. Wealth never yet in
history has recognized its true position in the world, and I suppose it
never will. Yet I am bound to say the things I think, and I can only
trust that some few at least will be impelled to study facts and come
before the tribunal of public opinion within the next few years armed
and prepared for their own vindication.
I have written in vain if I have not made it clear that while the
class of the wealthy has been increasing steadily during the past
five years, faster than it ever increased in a similar period before,
that growth in numbers has been accompanied also by an ever-increasing
knowledge on the part of the wiser heads in the social world, by a
serious, sober, and careful analysis of the real conditions among the
wealthy themselves, and by a genuine adaptation of the minds of the
wealthy to these new conditions as they come home to us. This is the
one hope of American Society. It is not conclusive, but at least it
points the way toward the future of America.
I do not want to be considered an alarmist or to cry panic from the
house tops. Yet, in the light of facts, and in the face of the terrific
changes that must take place within the next decade in our social and
business structure, I cannot see how the business world of America
can long escape a reckoning that has for years been overdue. There
has to be in this country an adjustment that will shake the financial
and business world to its foundations. It is possible, though not
probable, that the necessary social changes of the next decade could
be accomplished without a cataclysm; but with the concurrent business
changes, the necessary shifting of the bases of our industrial system,
the inevitable scaling down of the extravagance to which the nation as
a whole has become accustomed, it is, I should say, utterly impossible
that we can go through without an industrial disturbance that will
strike far deeper than any we have known since 1893.
For the poison of gold has debauched and corrupted American Society, it
has brought within our gates new armies of parasites, it has led to a
degree of ostentation and of luxury, and even of vice and profligacy,
comparable with that of the Roman Empire under Heliogabalus. I said
in a former chapter that the middle class in America has almost if
not quite lost its power. One of the most vital reasons for this fact
is that much of that middle class has become confused with the lower
fringes of the wealthy class, has learned to ape its habits and its
luxuries, has come to live with ostentation and display, and has
given up its traditional habits of frugality and thrift to waste its
substance on a riotous form of living that is, as it were, but a faint
and unworthy imitation of the habits of life of the wealthy.
In the process of adjustment that is unavoidable this drunkenness must
pass. The great professional class, which in all ages has produced
so many thinkers, writers, and makers of a nation’s history, must
come back into its own; it must learn again the lesson of thrift
and providence which it has learned so well in France and Germany,
and which, forty years ago, were the most striking features of its
character here in this land. If, as is true, the class I represent has
very much to learn, I take it to be equally true that every other class
in the land also has its lessons to learn. The process of learning is
not to be an easy one. It may be that we as a nation will be tried
in the fiery furnace of adversity, immersed in the gloomy depths of
business depression, and crushed beneath a load of debt and repudiation
before we have learned the first small principles upon which the newer
order of things in America must be founded.
It is not my business, however, to talk to the people of America at
large. I am addressing this book to Society, to the men and women whom
I know, to the boys and girls who are to take our places in the social
world as years go by. To them, in all sincerity, I am preaching a
sermon of warning. I am calling them to gird themselves for battle--a
battle the like of which has never been fought in this land before--a
battle for life.
My appeal, if it were merely an appeal to save ourselves, would be
sordid indeed. For it is ours to think of saving others. The bugle of
the assured destiny of our race should quicken us to the service of a
great and holy cause. The call is the call of the future, and the cause
is the cause of humanity. I covet for you, my friends and members of my
class, a higher destiny than the mere panic-stricken flight to safety.
I am aware not only of your views, but of your virtues. Never before
has there been such an opportunity for real service to mankind. You
have the means, you have the power, you have the position, you have
all, save only the will. I feel confident that if you give the matter
study, and do not throw away this book as mere idle talk, the will to
serve will come to you.
I know that the great bulk of Society can be reconstructed only by one
agency, and that is death. To-day, in the South, there linger here and
there many old men and women who never yet have ceased to call down
curses from heaven upon the head and memory of Lincoln. It is perfectly
self-evident that in this other cause of which I write, and that has
come to be so near to me, the army of the unreconstructed must remain
for many years tremendous. Particularly is this true of the newer
recruits within the golden gates of the city of wealth. You may note
that we are still enjoying the company of the first generation of the
captains of industry. The second generation marches swiftly upon us. It
will not be satisfied, it will not be sated, until it has reached the
mellowness of age. It will follow the will-of-the-wisp of society to
the bitter end. It is more stubborn, I think, than even that ancient
culture of Boston and Philadelphia. Most certainly it is much more
offensive to the public at large. In fact, more than any other specific
subdivision of the army of wealth, it flaunts its glaring banners in
the faces of the people.
I often think, as I watch the young men and women of my class trying to
enjoy themselves, what a terrible problem we have bequeathed to them.
I am no longer young; even my friends call me middle aged. At any rate,
I have reached a stage in life where I can stop and weigh the facts,
and come to a conclusion unbiased by the mere joy of living. Therefore
I am moved to pity as I watch the very young of my class at play. For
I am positively certain that three out of four of them will face, in
the fulness of their lives, many bitter and heart-searching problems.
Already the shadow of impending events falls heavily upon them. Many of
them, even in their very tender youth, have learned that they belong to
a hated class. How different is their lot from mine! For I, as a boy,
was taught to consider myself the heir of all the ages. I was taught
that I belonged to a class loved and respected for its virtues, envied
and looked up to for its opportunities. I was taught that the women
of my class were models and examplars to all the world. I was taught
that the men were the uncrowned kings of America, leaders of thought,
leaders of action, masters of destiny, masters of business.
To-day, in New York, the girls of our class cannot read the newspapers
without learning the fearful lesson that their fathers are despised by
the people and their mothers are suspected by the women of the nation.
Ridicule, slander, sarcasm, and obloquy are poured upon us day by
day. I sometimes wonder how the class can survive it. It is a fearful
thing for a young girl to be brought up to womanhood in an atmosphere
like this. It must breed either careless, heartless indifference, or a
spirit of discontent. I hope it is the latter, but, alas! I very much
fear it is more likely to be the former.
What are we going to do about it? I wish I could answer the question
in one great, sweeping generality. Unfortunately, I do not believe it
can be answered so. I know that the author of “The Trust: Its Book” has
found an answer in a Utopian partnership between capital and labour.
I know that Mr. Carnegie has found the answer in coöperation. I know
that such skilful writers as Lloyd and Wells have solved the riddle by
Socialism. I know that many thousands of the hardest thinking, hardest
working citizens of this country are pledged already to the doctrine
of government ownership of the sources of wealth. I know that Danton
and Robespierre thought that they had found it when they set up the
guillotine in Paris. I know that the Terrorists of Russia have worked
out their own solution. I know that the Rockefeller Foundation, the
Sage Foundation, and a thousand other mighty charities are intended
as an answer. I know that Samuel Gompers and John Mitchell think that
the extension of trade unionism will solve it. Above all, I know that
many of the seasoned leaders of the social world believe that it will
swiftly solve itself. I believe that Mr. Morgan and his wonderful group
of associates thought they had taken a long step toward the solution
when they threw the entire money power of the United States into the
fight against panic in 1907. They believed that they had earned from
the people of this country undying admiration, endless devotion, and
an end of all warfare, because they thought they had stepped between
panic and its victims.
Yet I cannot believe that any one of these solutions is the right one.
No permanent change in the social structure of this nation can be
accomplished except by a revolution or by the process of evolution, at
which I have vaguely hinted here and there throughout this book.
Education must go on. The professional reformer, the sycophant who
bows before us, the parasite who eats our bread and dispenses the
wisdom of the ages in return, harp upon this theme. Only, to their
mind, education means simply the training of the lower classes into
a traditional habit of mind that will permit the continuance of the
present conditions. To me education has no such meaning. More than any
other class in the United States, we, the rich, need it. We must get it.
We must learn the truth about ourselves, our strength, our weakness,
our true position in the world. We must learn the truth about our
nation, our political institutions, our laws, our misuse of special
privilege, our brigandage of the people’s rights at Washington and at
every state capital in the land. We must learn the truth about the
people, their rights, their wrongs, their power, and their weakness.
And, as we learn, we must act. We must ourselves eradicate the worst of
our faults. We must ourselves condemn to death the idle rich. We must
see to it that as our young men and women grow to maturity they learn
to condemn and to scorn the sort of ostentatious display, the miserable
vices, the degenerate luxuries, and the positive moral crimes that
to-day are so rampant among us. We must, if we are to save ourselves
and the world that we inherited, go back to the traditions of our
fathers. We must reestablish in the social world of America the Spartan
principles that marked that world in the days of Lincoln.
The age of arrogance is ended. That is a hard lesson. The idle rich of
America, with the bitter voice of poverty and the deep tones of science
alike ringing in their ears challenges of their existence as a class,
may well tremble at the tones of that other voice which, though seeming
silent, yet speaks aloud. The nation’s greatest builder, Lincoln, built
as unto liberty. That temple from which he drove the idle driver of
slaves, for these long years dedicated to the uses of Mammon, yet
looms large in the visions of the disinherited.
Above all else that we may do on the positive side there remains the
privilege of putting our study to practical work in the amelioration
of the conditions that exist and the prevention of the recurrence of
the phenomena that gave us these conditions. As a class we are, to-day,
obstructionists. It is our class conservatism, you may say, that impels
us to look with suspicion upon the rising of the people against, for
instance, such a political debauch as has ruled Rhode Island for so
long. We, on the contrary, should stand in the front ranks of such a
battle as that. First of all, we, the people of this country, should
detect political corruption, we should recognize the symptoms of the
palsying touch of gold--and we should stand out before the world as
the sworn champions of justice, equality, and honour.
For I do not believe that the march of progress in this land is to be
turned backward. I cannot believe that the nation as a nation is to
sink into the depths as England sank in the middle of the eighteenth
century. I take it for granted that the wiping out of the idle rich is
to be one of the first steps in a programme of national advancement,
greater, more splendid, and far more universal than any other period
of advancement and progress in the history of the nation. The idle
rich are an obstacle in the way; therefore they must be eliminated or
destroyed. Whether we, all the rich, as a class, are to share with them
in that destruction depends upon whether or not we too set ourselves up
as an obstacle in the path of the nation’s development.
As I have said, I cannot name a panacea, or dispose in a few rounded
paragraphs of the problems that confront us. Personally I am convinced
that many measures to which my class is to-day unalterably opposed will
within the next few years take their places as laws upon our statute
books. I am persuaded that sooner or later the solid opposition of the
Eastern states to a graduated income tax will be broken down. I fully
expect to see before I die the inauguration of inheritance taxes and
legacy taxes in this country that will tend at least to level in the
course of time the tremendous discrepancies that have grown up under
our present system of taxation.
I do not expect to see a general triumph of pure Socialism. It may
be that ultimately we shall experiment with government ownership of
railroads and public utilities, but I should look forward with terror
to any such experiment. It may be that in the remedying of the defects
of our civilization we as a nation shall be impelled into excesses of
this sort for at least a brief period of our history. If it be so, the
nation will be quick to remedy its mistakes when once it has tried them
out and found them wanting.
I do not expect to see the great industrial consolidations destroyed.
I do expect to see in the very near future a period in which the
wholesale exploitation of the raw materials of wealth--both labour
and the products with which it works--will be curtailed. I do expect
to see a very decided limitation placed upon the growth of tremendous
industrial fortunes.
Granting such limitation, and granting patience upon the part of
the people, I know that many of our defects will cure themselves. It
is an old saying in this land that it is but three generations from
shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves. That phrase is no mere generalization.
It is based upon scientific data. Twenty years ago, in the old city
of Worcester, Massachusetts, Mr. Joseph H. Walker carried on an
investigation along this line. He discovered that out of seventy-five
manufacturers in that city in 1850 only thirty died or retired with
property; while of the sons of these manufacturers only six, in 1890,
held any property or had died in the meantime in possession of such.
In 1878 there were one hundred and seventy-six men engaged in the ten
leading manufacturing trades of that city, and of these only fifteen
had inherited the trade that they were carrying on.
Give us time and we shall solve all the problems of the age. The
makers of America to-day are almost without exception men who have
made themselves. That is an American tradition that we shall carry on
throughout the ages. I cannot help but hope, even against the evidence
of my own eyes and ears, that this plutocracy which to-day threatens
the very life of the nation can be passed into American history without
an epoch-marking revolution. Only, we of the wealthy class have many
things to learn, and we must learn them faithfully, sitting at the feet
of the historians.
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.