St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-02-29
Russell Sage, Leland Stanford, W. Fl.
Vanderbilt and Peter Cooper
Talk About Lucre.
The Pleasure of Getting Money Is
Not So Great as It's Cracked
Up to Be.
Elizabeth Thompson Cried Because the
Money She Gave Away Seemed
to Do No Good.

Ciat' cdSe WAS only tilIfCy WITCH he
came to congress, but he did one thing
well-he rescued Mt. Vernon from decay
i'll private hands and organized the
scheme for its purchase and renovation.
Since that good deed he has wrestled
with the bulls and bears in Wall street
and has piled up shekels. Heis, prOba-
ably, worth $4,000, 900: at any rate, Jay
Gould has so declared, publicly.
| asked Mr.. Sage to tell me what fun
there was in making money more than
he could use.
''Nerely the pleasure of successful
competition" he said. ''Just the same
pleasure that boy experiences in run
ming faster and climbing higher than
his mates. There are other ways of
surprising that | should think would
give even more of this sort of gratifica-
tion-being the greatest poet or the
greatest artist or the greatest inventor
or the greatest scientific authority"
''Then there is no pleasure in the
mere possession of money!" L asked.
What do you mean by the mere
possession? he replied. "Winning
the money and keeping it when all the
rest of the fellows are irving to get it is
just the successful competition | was
speaking of. Money III itself has no
power OF comforting pleasure, of course,
any more than so much mud. 1t is the
knowledge of what money will do that
gives pleasure"
care you rich enough, Mr.. Sage?" 1
inquired.
Jam L? Why, yes. l have a great
deal more money than need and don't
really want any more"
Why don't you go out of business,
then?"
Because there is nothing else that 1
want to do. don't care about horse
racing or yachting. | don't want to
travel. New York like better than
Paris, and Broadway is good enough for
me. In fact, I'd rather stay at Il Broad
way and guess Oh the prices of things
than anywhere else in the world"
| used to talk with Peter Cooper
pretty often at his little retreat in his
glue StOrehOuSe down town in New
York, when he found out that | didn't
want anything.
what are the pleasures of having
money?' [ one day asked him.
1.-The probability it brings that you
will not come to want" he said. "There
is no happiness in the mere accumula-
tiOn of wealth that L know Of" he
added, Except the chance it gives of
serving others. But the art of spend
ing money so that it will do good is, /
think, the most difficult art in the world
more difficult than painting picture.
L tried for twenty years to benefit those
around ME by giving them money as 1
thought they needed it, and suddenly
found out that L had set up pauper
factory and was changing Industrious
families into beggars. Then stopped
that method and built the institute, and
l really hope some good will come from
that"
us man any happier when he is
worth $4,000, O00," asked at a venture,
ethan when he is worth SCOOP
mo, l can't say that he is, except for
the chance L spoke of. 1t is real pleas
ure to give to others when you are sure
it will do them good. The most pleasure
money ever gave me to look at was the
$40 in gold thatI saved in 1908 out of the
S25 which Burtiss & Woodward paid me
a year for carriage making. l clothed
myself somehow out of the remaining
SIS, though clothes and everything cost
more then than now, and L saved $40
each year, and it seemed if was almost
a rich man. The mere possession of
millions has never since given me so
much pleasure"
John Il. Moore. the new Wall street
magnate, is probably warth $4,000. 900 or
more, and | asked him one day how it
felt to be worth million.
''Feel?' he repeated. laughing: ''there
is less fun in making the last million
than the first thousand. l am sure of
that. The only value of money is its
use. | don't merely mean to buy mer-
chandiSe and articles of necessity with
l mean to skirmish with. A man like
Jay Gould. for instance, must find a
good deal of pleasure in the mere sense
of power; in the consciousness that he
can accomplish tremendous things with
the stroke of pen, can knock out the
props by selling, and thereby depriving
a scheme of~the enterprise and sagacity
which business men impute to him, or
can open up great empires and promote
transportation and shift the centers of
settlement by building trunk railroad
where it is needed. The possession of
such power must give pleasure, some
what as the author finds pleasure in in
fluencing the minds and moving the
emotions of his readers
l asked Senator Stanford last week
what were the pleasures conferred by
wealth.
1T is pleasant to be rich," he frankly
said; Ito feel that you are beyond the
reach of want and can actually do some
thing to relieve the wants of others
when you are certain of the case, but
the advantages of wealth are greatly
Overestimated. / am not comparing it
with pauperism. That millionaire is
infinitely better off than the penniless;
but so is man who is worth $4,000
above his debts. | do not clearly see
that man who can be anything that he
fancieS is any better off than man who
can buy what he actually needs. He
can crafty his WITNESSES, to be sure;
but there are some positive diSadvan-
tages; in the first place, the life he was
compelled to lead in order to accumu-
late wealth has probably prevented that
cultivation of taste for art, music and
letters which is essential to the highest
enjoyment; and, in the second place,
his life is an inceSSant struggle to keep
what he has got and to fight off the
competitors who are clutchIng for it.
No man can keep fortune with him;
it must be scattered here and there i'm
business, and he must protect it at
arms length. Probably the average
man worth 100000 enjoys just as much
as the millionaire; for my wife and
are wOrrieda lmost to death by beggars,
some OF them regular 'rounderS.' who
solicit, implOre, entreat and demand
that there be sent to them at once GER
tain stipulated sum of money. There is
no pleasure in being thus tormented,
and the man of moderate income eS-
capes it,"
Once | called on Elizabeth Thompson,
the New Yark philantnrophist, and
found her just drying her tears. 81
have had good crying SPELL she said,
ION finding out that all the money that
have given away has never done any
good"
AS | knew that she had given at least
$4,000 a year to charity for a good
many years, | thought that the con-
clusion was historical one, and told
her so.
NO. she said seriously. mo, have
been over the list. 1t is most saddening