Elizabeth daily monitor. [volume] (Elizabeth, N.J.) 1868-1880, 1869-03-03
OPEN LETTER TO COM. WANDER
BILT.
CONCLUSION.

you ana TINS is honest. lou are an
old man, and ought to have some rest,
and yet you have to struggle. and deny
yourself of restful sleep and peace OF
Mind because you need money so bad
ly. / always feel for man who is so
poverty ridden us you. Don't misun-
derstand me, Vanderbilt / know you
own seventy millions but then you
know and / know that it isn't what a
man has that constitutes wealth. No
it is to be satisfied with what one has
that is wealth. AS long us one sorely
needs certain additional amount, that
man isn't rich. Seventy times seventy
millions can't make him rich as long as
his poor heart is breaking for more |
am just rich enough to buy the least,
valuable horse in your stable, perhaps,
but / cannot sincerely and honestly
take an oath that [ need any more now.
And so am rich. But yon you have
got seventy millions, and you need five
hundred millions, and are really suffer
ing for it. Your poverty is something
appalling. / tell you truly that I do
not believe / could live twenty four
hours with the awful weight OF four
hundred and thirty millions of abject
want crushing down upon me. l
should die under it. My soul is so
wrought upon by your hapless pauper-
ism, that if you came by me now I
would freely put up ten cents iii your
tin cup, if you carry one, and say,
"God pity yon, poor unfortunate.
Now, I pray you take kindly all that
| have said Vanderbilt, for I assure
you have meant it kindly, and it is
said in an honester spirit than you are
accustomed to find in what is said to
you or about you. And do go, now,
and do something that isn't shameful
Do go and do something worthy of a
man possessed of seventy Millions
man whose most trifiing act is remem-
bered and initiated all over the country
by younger men than you. Do not be
deceived into the notion that every
thing you do and say is wonderful,
simply because those asses who publish
you so much make it appear so. Do
not deceive yourself. Very often an
idea of yours possessed of no innate
magnifcenee, but is simply shining
with reflected splendor of your seventy
millions. Now, think of it. [ have
tried to initiate you and become IA
nous ; all the young men do it ; but,
bless you, my performances attracted
no attention. / gave crippled beg
gar girl two-cent piece and humor-
ously told her to go to the Fifth Ave
nue. Hotel and board week but no.
body published it. If you had done
that it would have been regarded as
one of the funniest things that ever
because you can say the
flattest things that ever l heard of,
Vanderbilt, and have them magnifed
into wit and wisdom i'll the papers.
And the other day, in Chicago, l
talked of buying the entire Union Pa
cific Railroad, clear to the Rocky
Mountains, and running it on my own
hook. It was as splendid an idea and
as bold an enterprise Us ever entered
that overpraised brain of yours, but
did it excite any newspaper applause
No. If you had conceived it, though,
the newspaper world would have gone
wild over it. No, sir other men think
and talk as brilliantly as You do, but
they don't do it in the glare of seventy
millions SO pray do not be deceived
by the laudation You receive; more of
it belongs to your millions than to you
[ say this to warn you against becom-
ing vainglorious on false basis, and
an unsound one--for if your millions
were pass from you you might be.surpri-
sed and grieved to notice what flat and
uncelebrated things You were capable
of saying and doing forever afterwards.
You observe that don't say any
thing about your soul Vanderbilt. 1t
is because | have evidence that you
haven't any. 1t would be impossible
to convince me that q man of your
matchless financial ability would over
look so dazzling an operation" if you
had soul to save, as the purchasing
&c 49, ll:o,,n &C .-onrs &C Dnuo H. Il