The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-02-06
AMERICAN LOVE OF MONEY.
What is Thought of 1t by an English
Critic
From the London Spectator.

'Sf'' t'eC A@ofstNcN CDtCttkOf.
All Americans, We are told, are learning
TO ldealize millionaires. the very servants
quoting service with them as proofs OF their
own merit-that is, in fact, to idealize
money. IL is hard to do that. to get the
glory Of money into the very Imagination
the THIRST for money into the very soul and
not to grow debased, to subordinate intel
iecVual aims and TO let spiritual aims die
OUT 1t Is not for nothing that the founders
OF creeds have condemned the covetous
man, or that popular opinion, the result of
ages OF experience. deSpises the avaricious
one. The teachers ID the populace alike
nave detected that the pursuit is too absorb
ing aud TOO earthly, that while it engrosses
the mind no noblenesS will grow, and that
when 1t is the vics of the community. the
strain, the painful strain toward higher
things must perforce cease Whether
mllhonaireS are economically a gaia or a
loss TO the community, We confess we do
not greatly care. 1t is the elevation of the
mlllonalre into an ideal, which is the
picture drawn by the Nation" that
alarms us for the future of Americans. II
that is the point they have reached after
their 100 years of climbing to the stars,
there Is not much hope in republican inst
tutlons, none at all of their developing
higher standards of life, or teaching the
etfete nations If Europe how to unite plain
living aud high thinking
w shall be told that we are too pesSimis-
TIC, that the majority of men in all countries
seek for money, and that it is only the
gigantic scale on which everything is CON
Quoted IN the new world which makes their
mllllonaires i'll any way remarkable. IL is
not 50. Not only do we not specially decry
American millloaares, bat we think their
quality OF mammoths the most redeeming
feature III the worship paid them. Money
IN those hinge aggregates has i'll It such
potentlalltleS, is so entirely beyond what
any man can spend upon self indulgence.
that we can understand that the desire for
1t Is often another form of the vague desire
for power which stirs the hearts not only
of the ambitious, but of the philanthroDic
1t is not the millionaire. but the
millionaire as the popular ideal, who
arouses our apprehensi )nS Men desire
money in Europe, and sometimes, when
they have anything to get, worship million
aires; but they do not make of them Ideals
They are not thirsting to be themselves
cellars of cash, nor are they inclined to bow
down before pecunlary reservoirs. The
tendency, in fact, is the other way-to hold
mere money" in certain Intellectual
scorn; to pander to the socialist dislike of
| the very rich man, to fall PROSTATE, if at
all, before rank and n htary success, and
intellect of a certain snowy and advertising
kind. The secret wishes of men are many
but those who desire to be as tie Nitrate
Hing. and who watch him, To catch if they
may his secret of success, are certainly not
the community. The majority in
all grades thirst for competence,
| as they reckon competence, in order
to be free; a few desire great wealth as u
tangible proof to themselves of their own
! success: one or two seek mammoth fortunes
for the mere pleasure Of the pyramid-build-
| ers, half vanity, half desire To do what has
not been done before; but all set an ideal
before themselves other than the money
Not even in France are the millionaires
raised into ideals, while in Germany they
are loathed in Italy, where men quit bust
ness on 600 year, they are disregarded;
in Austria they are nothing, being crushed
by the reverence for birth; and in Englan
they are-what shall we say? defended,
with apologies for the defense, as people
who are useful in their way.