The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-11-30
American Families.

The announcement that one of the Lorl- |
lards is building at Newport the largest |
dwelling house in the United States has sug-
gested the comment that in twenty years the |
house will probably be boarding house,
with one of the Lorillards in the kitchen
There is only too much in the history of
American families to make the suggestion
pertinent. Oliver Wendell Holmes has trac
ed the rise and downfall Of the average Ame
rican family from its humble beginnings on
the little farm to its final extinction in the |
city gutter, and has found that the process
usually occupied just three generations; the
son building on the foundations which the
father had laid, and the grandson wasting in
dissipation fortune which he had not the
energy to earn, nor the sense to appreciate
Even in cases where criminal folly and fool
ish waste do not dissipate the fortune, the
process of division does it's work nearly as
quickly, and the acute observer, from whom
we have quoted, has followed the dwindling
subdivision of a fortune of a million, which
in the next generation supports four fami.
lies in quiet luxury, in the next barely suffi-
ces for the maintenance of a single spinster,
and in the next furnishes boy with enough
capital to enable him to fail in business in
small wav.
From the operation of these two causes
waste and division it has come to te looked
on as the rule that the wealth which we usu
ally identify with the existence of family
should disappear in generation or two,
and that the proverb with regard to riches
having wings should be fulfilled with pain.
tul accuracy in this country. But there are
not wanting indications that the rich Amer
lean is learning how to take care of his dol
lars, and that the self made man is not des-
tined to be forever the only representative
of American wealth. The fortune of the
Astors began nearly hundred years ago,
and there has never been year that it has
not held its own; the Vanderbilt estate
seems to be assured in safe hands for many
years to come, and conservative Boston
which has always cared less for money than
for blood and culture, has managed to both
families and fortune amid the chances and
changes of American history.
paragraph which has gone the rounds
of the papers stating that there were now
in Harvard college representatives and
namesakes of Martin VanBuren of Edward
Everett and James Otis, shows that all the
old families do not utterly disappear 1t
would be matter of great regret if it were
otherwise, and if the building up of great
fortune were the signal for its dispersal
The country hasjust passed through an Or
deal which has severely tested the resources
of every industry, and it is impossible to es-
innate the beneficial influence of fortune
like that of Vanderbilt and Stewart in stead
ying the investments they respectively rep
resent. Merely from business point of
!, view, these colossal fortunes are national
benefits in times of adversity they stand
like bulwarks to resist attacks of disaster,
and to mitigate its fury, and if we wish to
understand their action we have only to con.
trast the bubble fortune Jay Cooke built
} on credit, and the downfall of his interests
with the stability of Vanderbilt, and of
, the interests which depended on him.
, 1t would be incredible stupidity to assume
that any good could come from the waste
| and destruction of savings or property of
any kind, but there is no denying that the
American people look with jealousy, if not
with downright hostility, on colossal for
| tunes. This is largely due to the low tone
of political morality which always finds its
profits in denouucing the few and pandering
to the prejudices of the multitude. But the
value of large fortunes to country, from
} the business point of view, is, perhaps, even
less than their value as the ministers OF
t learning, of art, of culture of every kind
All that the richest millionaire can do with
) his money is either to save or spend it. L
he saves it he feeds the channels of trade
he must minister to the higher demand.
( which make up civilization. The man who
l has more money than he can spend soor
= hnds his fortune overhowing into pursuit,
which do not pay, and which can be sus.
< lained only by immense wealth and as Ions
as music and sculpture and painting have
value, as long as libraries and museums ant
y art galleries are desirable instruments o
: culture, it will be desirable to perpetual,
the fortunes by which alone they can b,
sustained Globe Democrat