Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-02-25
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT
THE DUTY OF RICH MEN TO
PROVIDE.

THE DUTY OF RICH MEN TO
PROVIDE.
| In its current issue the New York In.
| dependent publishes a collection of ar.
ticles on 1.-The Right Use of Wealth. :"
| The writer's are D. Willis James; Robt
| C. Ogden; President Merrill E. Gates,
| of Amherst college; Rev. DIR. j. NJ.
Buckley, editor of the Christian Advo-
cate; Rev. DIR. Robert S. Macarthur;
| Rev. DIR. F. E. Ellinwood, secretary of
the Presbyterian board of foreign mis-
sions and Chas. D. Kellogg. secretary
| of the Charity Organization Society.
| The spirit of all the contributions is
| expressed by Mr.. James when he says
that "a rich man holds his wealth SIM
| ply as trustee between his Maker and
humanity" The mode of enforcing
/ this trust obligation is described by DIR.
Buckley: stewards or agents of men
have fixed salaries, and receive direct
instructions from their principals as to
| the management of the interests COM
| mitted to their care; but stewards of
God are left to determine by the pre-
cepts which He has given how they
| should live, and by thesexercise of their
own judgment what use they shall
| make of what they do not deem neces-
| sary or lawful to expend for their sub
| sistence and comfort" This is a COM
Portable sort of trusteeship surely, for
| the trustee; but it leaves what lawyers
| call cestui que trust in a rather awkward
| plight
Observe that the rich man does not
own his wealth. 1t is not his to do
| with as he pleases, subject only to the
universal law of liberty that he shall
| not work injury to others with it; he is
| merely a trustee. His wealth belongs
to humanity. Nevertheless he has full
| discretion to fix his own salary; and if
he fixes it at an unreasonable high
| figure, even Incorporating the en-
tire trust fund, no power is anywhere
| lodged to enforce the trust The trus-
| tee may be punished in future world,
but in the only world where wealth
can be enjoyed, the defrauding bene-
| fciary is remediless. What concep-
| ton of divine justice can these well
meaning men have. What conception
have they of divine intelligence.
| The truth is that they do not look be-
| low the surface of things. They see
| that some men are rich, while more are
helplessly poor, and instinctively feel
| ing that in this there is something
wrong, yet unwilling to believe that
| God is other than good, their first inn
pulse is to accuse rich men of grinding
| the faces of the poor. But the impulse
gives way when they consider-as con-
slider they must. for it is true and plain
| that rich men do not grind the faces
| Of tho T'hou in daily m cf
| with rich men whom they find to be
| altogether incapable of consciously do
| ing personal wrong or giving play to
a mean motive. In this dilemma, the
preacher the charity organizers, the
business man of benefcent instincts
all that class which is so well repre-
sented by the writer's who have dis
cussed the Right Use of Wealth" in
the Independent, seek farther for an
explanation of the phenomenon of alb
ject poverty in the midst of Astounding
| wealth. But he does not seek far
enough. Consequently he constructs a
crude theory of divine law calculated
to reconcile the impartial generosity of
God with the persistence of poverty.
In doing this he only detracts from
the justice and the wisdom of the
Creator. Negligently assuming that
the wealth of individuals is bestowed
by God, and seeing that for every one
who has it thousands are without it,
and thousands cling more desperately
to the steep sides of poverty's gulf, yet
believing that God is no respecter OF
persons, writer's like those in The INDIE
pendent conclude that the possession of
wealth implies an affirmative obliga-
ton to use it for the benefit of those
who need it. If they searched deeper
they would find the true law, which
reconciles divine justice, generosity
and wisdom with the persistence of
poverty, without holding rich men re-
sponsible for deplorable social condi-
tions in any greater degree than all
men are responsible for an ignorant or
negligent misuse of such influences as
they possess.
This law is involved in the self-evi-
dent proposition that God, though he
gives no wealth to anyone, in trust or
otherwise, endows men with the men,
tai and physical power requisite for its
production, and bestows upon them all
alike the material and forces of the
universe with which they may produce
wealth in all its FORMS according to
the common knowledge of the time in
which they live. and without which
they can not produce it in any form. 1t
follows that the wealth that any man
produces is his to do with as he pleases
him best. subject to no other obliga-
ton than that he shall not use it to in
jure others, and to no other deduction
than compensation to his fellows for
such advantage regar ling his use of
natural material and forces as through
the artificial adjustments of society he
may have secured.
It is what God has bestowed upon
mankind-the land-that is trust, not
the wealth that individual men, by
their own efforts, have temporarily pro-
duced from the land and which must
soon return to the land again. That
trust can be enforced here and now by
the simple, wise, and just expedient of
taking the value of land for public use,
and leaving private wealth to its own
ers The trust proposed by the indie
pendent contributors can no. be fairly
enforced in this world, nor in any de-
gree at all except by measures that are
communistic in the worst sense; and in
the next world it will be too late
Society and the Baby.
There was Baby born; a brand new,
fresh baby, who didn't mean any harm,
and came quite internationally.