Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-04-05
" Where the Profits Co."


was spent, but the way it was gained, that
we objected to. Money honestly earned may
be well expended in tasteful home comforts,
or even in luxurious adornment But we
submit that it is not very pleasant to farm
ers (or any other class of wealth. producers)
to see money, extracted from their pockets
by chicanery, spent in the gorgeous decora-
tion of "palatial dwellings, in this demo
cratic country. AS to the merits of the point
we did not raise, but which Mr.. Tinkham
undertakes to answer, we have an opinion.
He puts forth the stock argument Of Euro.
pean aristocracy, that the extravaganza
blessing TO the community in which he lives.
That some profit by it there is no doubt.
This is the narrow view of the matter.
When man has, either honestly or other
wise, gained large fortune, he may use it
so as to greatly increase the prosperity of his
neighborhood. Or he may set a very bad
example with it, and lead the young into
dissipation and vice, or ruin his neighbors
by enticing them into speculations, disas-
trous or beyond their means. Whether the
millionaire is penurious and usurious, or
wasteful and vicious, or whether, on the
other hand, he is public spirited and liberal,
he is still big man in the neighborhood,
and his wealth is a strong social and politi-
cal power under single will. Now would
it not be better to have this million of money
in the possession Of thousand industrious
and honest working men,-that is, would it
not do vastly more good to the community,
so distributed, than it would do even in the
possession of one so good man as Peter
Cooper. We think it would, for these rea-
sons. First, the capital would be more ac-
tive. The industry and the brains of a
thousand men would be behind it, instead
of only one. Second, it would take off bur-
dens of debt that crush energy and make
true economy impossible. Third, the use
and disposal of it would not hang upon the
life and death of single man. Fourth, it
could never be used in mass to support any
party or project, aud thus practically often
to deprive numerical majority of its rights,
or force heavy taxation and unwise ex-
penditure upon a community. These are a
few of the reasons that can be given on this
side of the question. On the other it is
urged that a good and wise man of great
wealth can institute and urge to success en-
terprises that would never be undertaken
by the people, even if the same value were
distributed amongst them. This is some
times so; but we do not think it offsets the
arguments on the other side.
But all this reasoning is on the assump-
ton that this wealth in single hand has
been honestly acquired, by wisdom and
energy devoted to useful ends. Suppose,
however, that the million has been accumu-
lated by selling rum, or has been extracted
usurious loans, or has been got out of honest
but credulous people by selling them shares
in oil wells, or silver mines. Here we will
have, say five thousand persons, robbed
(there is no other word for it) of a million
of dollars, the slow savings of long lsborious
days. This means Thousand families de-
frauded of means for educating their chill
dren, paying their debts, and of having
some comfort and freedom from oppressive
care in old age. Now who will say that
this million is better placed in one mans
hands under such circumstances ? Yet the
great bulk of the large fortunes accumulated
in this and other countries was got in ways
no more beneficial TO the world or credita
BILE to the possessors than this. Jay Gould
who is said to have been engaged, twenty-five
years back, in the honest but not lucrative
business of peddling maps in the city of AL
bany, few days ago exhibited to commit
tee of other millionaires S60,000000 worth
of securities free from incumbrance, and of
fered to show S30,0O0000 more of United
States bonds, in all, say the value Of twenty
thousand good farms. How has this little
peddler got so rich, even before his hair il
gray2 1t is notorious, and not denied, that
he and Jim Fisk (another peddler) got con
troll of the Erie railway by sharp practice
at time when both together were no
worth half-a-million, and in two or thre
years they robbed the corporation Of owe
S50,000,000. Since then (Jim having Z" diec
as the fool dieth y, Jay has been trading ant
gambling with this plunder in Wall street
and the net result is attested by his recen
display. Now does anybody think tina
these boss Wall street gamblers gained thei
wealth out of one another--swapping jack
knives cross-handed, as it were : Scarcely
Part of il comes from men who have NOR
or less honestly gained it elsewhere, AM
"try their luck in those big, licensed, AM
highly respectable gambling houses, tn
stock and produce exchanges. Much NOR
comes from bank cashiers, and other trustee
of property, who think they can thus us
other mems money to get rich with, by tn
simple process of betting upon their owl
judgment regarding the price OF railroa
bonds, wheat, corn or pork, at the end o
thirty, sixty or ninety days time. More
again, comes from clerks, who rob their en-
ployers to engage in the same fascinatin
sport How much flows in from people i
the country who never tell of it, but who
. for some inscrutable cause, carry about di'
tressed faces, and finally make assignment
when everybody thought them well oil, VIII
can tell
Any man can make fortune now-a-dayi
who can get the control of a railroad. II
: will be rich and living in "palatial res
: dence in few years, whether the owners c
the road, or its creditors, ever see cent G
not. Now we ask common-sense reader
= whether the extravagances of such rich me
are likely to be blessing to the communit.
= or, If in some ways blessing, If this bles
ing any way equals the Generalization an
= ruin worked in the course of the acquiremer
Of these millions, and afterwards
a.la a Al II. Il