The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-22
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WEALTH.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WEALTH.
Whenever a millionaire dies we always
hear the cynical cackle the thriftless and
envious raise over rich mans corpse:
you were worth twenty millions, but
you are dead; you couldn't carry anything
out of the world with you; dead, you are
only subject of interest to surgeons and
of solicitude to undertakers; the corpse of
a millionaire is as worthless in any other
sense as that of the poorest creature that
ever asked him in vain for charity This
spendthrift's complacent grin at mil
lionaire in the breakless clutch of King
Death; his bullwhacking of the dead lion
is very silly, for in his heart this cynical
spendthrift knows that while all men
agree with him that it is better to be a
healthy pauper than millionaire hope
lessly sick or dead, all also agree that
they would like to be millionaire with
health to enjoy and employ a million.
Falstaff on the battlefield at Shrewsbury
sneeringly says that a live coward is worth
an army of dead heroes, and yet Falstaff
would have been very happy if he could
have secured the earthly honors and re-
wards of Prince Halls heroism without
risking wounds and death for praise, pelf
and power, but he loved life more than he
did honor or riches; he did not dare pay
the hero's price for honor or riches; so,
much as he loved all the prizes of this
world, he Rugged his cowardice to keep it
warm by scoffing at the gallant Hotspur
dead, and singing that che who fights and
runs away will live to fight another day"
This mean, sordid, craven spirit is the
essence of the philosophy of the cheap
fellows that pretend to despise riches, and
are never so happy as when they are kick
ing in death millionaire to whom in life
they would have gladly sold themselves
for picture book. OF course they don't
envy him his death, or grudge him his
place in the grave; nobody does, whether
his soul fled to bliss or woe; but they do
envy him his riches, and would be very
glad to take his place anywhere short of
coffin. The cynical spendthrift moralizes
as fearlessly and fippantly over the dead
millionaire as the grave diggers do in
"Hamlet" over the skulls of the lawyers
and politicians that in life would have cir
cumvented God.
The best lesson Of many rich mems lives
is the incapacity of enormous wealth to
briug with il any happiness or honor in
proportion to its vast amount There is
no advantage or entertainment in the
possession of wealth that grossly exceeds
the capacity of the owner to enjoy. Be-
yond the mere sense of power which great
wealth brings, a man is far happier with
million than with twenty millions. To
men who are not philanthropists and do
not enjoy the organization and conduct
Of benevolent enterprises, enormous
wealth means only an opportunity for
the unbridled indulgence of animal
tastes. or, if the man is not SEN
sual, it means a lifelong, feverish
struggle to use his millions in order to win
other millions. 1t is great pity that enor-
nous wealth should be won by men whose
early training makes it impossible that
they should do much good with it in pro-
portion to the volume of their trust.
Give man sincerely loving his fellow
men, or only loving sincerely art and liter
allure for its own sake, give him ten or
twenty millions of dollars, and he could
think Of many ways in which it would be
delightful to him to expend his millions.
To such man foreign travel would mean
the exquisite qualification of versatile
tastes, the accumulation and dispensing of
books and works of art.
The man who inherits great wealth
sometimes does something for art and
literature; sometimes builds and endows
libraries and hospitals magnifcently; the
man who wins great wealth sometimes
makes splendid use of it, but as a rule
man whose genius for trade has helped
him to make millions, uses his millions
like Shylock rather than like Aston, Cir.
ard, Peter Cooper or Amos Lawrence.
Rev. DR.. Gates, president of Amherst COL
lege, in recent address before the Ameri-
can board at Pittsfield, Mass, upon 1.-THE
Highest Use Of Wealth." argued that in
any proper conception Of citizenship the
chief advantage of wealth is the opportun-
ity which it gives its possessor to be of
service to the state. Concerning the les
sening of this sense of the responsibility
of wealth to the community noted by
President Gates, the New York EpeniFg
Post says:
The rich man of the old school sought wealth
In order to enjoy what wealth brings and when
he had money enough for that purpose he was
ready to stop. The rich man OF the new school,
by the time he has acquired all that he needs, is
possessed with passion for useless accumula-
ton. He seeks more wealth, not because he
requires more. or can make good use of more
but simply in order to feel that he has more
And the passion for this useless accumulation
grows until the man too often loses all sense of
any obligation to the community which fur.
nishes him the opportunity for piling up
wealth.
IN SOCIAL DISGRACE.