The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-05-05
Responsibility of Wealth.

No man of large wealth can satisfy
a generous nature or an honest con-
science by mere service in production.
If the eXigencies of business will not
permit any withdrawal of capital for
philanthropic enterprise, then let him
curtail luxurious personal expenditure
for the sake of such enterprise. No
man, without leaving a stain upon his
memory, can die rich, unless he has,
either during his life or by will at his
death, benefited society in other than
industrial ways. No man can hope to
escape the awful perils of greed and OPP
preston, and all low trickeries and dis
honesties which compass the path of
the getting and the care of wealth, ex-
cept by putting himself strongly, by
means of his money, into the moral, in
tellectual, spiritual life of his commu-
nifty and his time. Charge Them"
said the inspired Paul, b" charge them
that are rich in this world " that their
trust be not in wealth, but in God, and
that they do good, that they commune
cate-that is, have large sympathies-
that heart and hand alike train wealth
to noble, social, human uses 1t is for
you and such as you, this broad land
over, to say whether increasing wealth
shall curse us or bless us, degrade or
elevate us. 1t is for you to say whether
the stains of injustice and oppression
shall be taken off your capitalism;
whether selfshness shall be turned into
an enlightened self-love, sweetened and
made tender and righteous by Chris
tian regard for others rights and a
Christian sympathy for others needs;
whether education, art, morality, re-
ligion, and wider distribution of all
industrial benefits shall raise the masses
of humanity to higher levels of charac-
ter and condition, What will you say?
What will you do? How will you treat
your noble trust? How will you meet
your supreme responsibility to society
and to God? You will not meet it by
communistic distribution. Neither God
nor best social interest call you to that
That is the towards refuge, when he
dare not face the world and duty! You
will not meet it by selfishness. Only
devil in your hearts can call to that
You can meet it only by an honest ad-
ministration of your wealth as a trust
given you for the worthiest social ends.
Hear a Chicago business man, Mr..
Franklin McVeah, speaking to his fell
lows at the Commercial Club of Bos-
ton: " Democracy, after all is not more
governmental revolution than it is a
social revolution. The greatest con-
cession, it seems to me, that will be
demanded of wealth by democracy-a
concession that will answer the de-
mands of progress as well-will be the
frank acknowledgment of moral trus-
teeship, of a moral obligation to freely
use surplus wealth for the general good
Happy the necessity, beneficent the tyr
amy, that will thus rule trade and
wealth to their own glorious enfran-
chisement n Once inspire trade
with such an aim, free wealth from its
spiritual bondage through this great
ideal, give to all the pursuits of bust
ness a right royal sanction that they
shall take rank and dignity with all the
work that is done for humanity in it's
best estate, with poetry, with every
form of literature, with every form of
art, with craftsmanship, with apostle
ship-Cresus hugging his millions to
his bosom as his own, in the narrow
sense of ownership, rejecting the idea
of trusteeship, will be overwhelmed in
the rush of the current of modern ideas.
Crgsus accepting the idea of trusteeship
will be the new force in civilization for
which the world is waiting. DR.. II.
Edpin BrOlCn.