The Cecil Whig., 1881-05-21
THE PERILS OF PROSPERITY.

erty is beset with troubles. Wealth
easy enough for narrow minded moral
ist to accumulate instances of one kind
to prove that any particular condition in
life is of all others the most dangerous,
and the men who are found in it the most
vicious. While pointing out few of the
perils which attend our private and ma
tional prosperity, we do not wish to be
classed with those who rail at wealth,
and imagine the rich to be i'll any pecu-
liar manner or degree a source of danger
to the republic. Civilization is fourded
upon wealth, and what wealth will buy.
Money which buys comfort, leisure, cul-
ture and refinement. which is expended
| in charity, education, art and religion,
blesses the community in which it is ac-
cumulated; and they who make it and
spend it thus have the right to take the
toll of luxury as it passes through their
hands.
But, in a country like ours, where on
the whole, since the first immigrations,
the rule has Leen to have small fortunes,
to live abstemiously, and to abhor the
license and the vicious pleasures which
always infest an ancient form of civiliZa-
ton, the sudden increase of wealth brings
with it peculiar dangers. In most eases,
the great fortunes which the discovery of
mineral oil in Pennsylvania suddenly put
into the hands of those who owned the
lands where the oil was found. proved
fatal to their inexperienced possessors.
The money was made by men and women
who knew none of the proper uses to
which n great fortune could be put
The most obvious advantage to be gained
by it was to buy luxuries to supply phys
ical wants. The result was short ca
reer of lavish expenditure. u plunge into
dissipation, and a sudden return to pow
erty.
On a larger scale, that experience is
likely to be repeated by those who gain
great wealth, for the use of which they
are not prepared. Poverty OF moderate
good fortune has hitherto kept the larger
part of our people at home, and preserved
them from contact with most of the
splendid vices of civilization. Now vices
are like diseases. They have their run"
and exhaust their virulence in an old
community. But, imported into coun-
tries where they are new, they acquire d
new destructive power. With Il sudden
and wide diffusion of wealth in America,
it will be more difficult than it is in older
communities to preserve the virtues upon
There are two kinds of high culture:
one which is established without wealth,
and. .procures the advantages and pleas
urcs which can be obtained by intelli-
gence and virtue, and another which is
the result of putting at the command of
intelligence and virtue great resources,
to be expended in forwarding all the high
interests of society. 1t requires great
self-control and great experience to en-
able one to make the transition from one
to the other in safety. The new oppor-
tunities bring great temptations. 4 host
of material Qualifications present their
claims. The mind is bewildered by the
ability to enjoy unaccustomed splendor
and to revel in new and untried field of
pleasure.
Rinl, A,pnrirans n, crnnlinr tl,air
wealth in foreign lands are the wonder
of the world, and in nothing is their
folly more conspicuous than in the eX-
travagant prices they are willing to pay
for initiation into European vices, or Il
share in the cheap privileges of foreign
society. or some borrowed luStre from
an ancient aristocracy. Mrs. Howe has
not overstated the shameful facts in re-
gard to the American slave market which
pro, ides beautiful women for foreign
| lords,
The manifest evils which attend any
sudden influx of wealth. not only to
those who acquire it and to those who
balance by the sight of it, are inevitable.
But they are not without antidote More
than ever do we need to push the agen-
cies which tend to IA high culture, and
make SO conspicuous the advantages and
pleasures of temperance, chastity and
health, the blessings of literature, sci
cnce, art and religion, that the increase
of wealth will have as its natural result
the extension of all these good things to
society in all its ranks.
There is one example of the two kinds
of high culture mentioned above follow
ing each other in natural succession so
apt for our purpose that We cannot re-
frain from using it. Louis Agassiz was
a poor man. poor to the end of his days.
But all Americans know that he was the
peer of any man, were he a CrTSus i'll
wealth or an emperor in rank. Yet many
things which he longcd for lie was COM
PEELED to forego for lack of means His
son has acquired great wealth. No
American believes-the supposition is
too evidently absurd-that Alexander
Agassiz is by his money lifted to rank
above his father But all intelligent
Americans are able to rejoice in the fact
that this control of ample resources ell
ables him to make the hopes and pur-
poses and unfinished plans of his father
established facts. In such case, culture
goes before and prepares the way, then
wealth comes to flow through the chan
nels provided by intelligence and all the
world shares the blessings which none Y
can buy.
The dangers of wealth are only such
perils as match privilege, and they are
avoided easily by those who use their
wealth to gain the privileges that wealth
can buy. Greed, pride, ostentation, IL
ialism and the RIGHTEOUSNESS of opportll-
nifty abused, are evils attendant upon the
use of great resources, of which the pro
per returns are improvement of the quail
ity of life and great enlargement of its
powers and pleasures. There can he no
danger of any attack upon property in
our country, unless the vast accumula-
tions of wealth shall be withdrawn from
the common uses of the community
The protection of wealth will be its
power to confer blessings: and that power