The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1893-08-30
THE POVERTY OF RICH MEN.
Perhaps Hungry People DO Not After Al
Feel Worse Than Many Others.

III re y Nv ~ AAtSE IA
Feel Worse Than Many Others.
The editor of Scribner's Magazine, VIII.
probably enjoys Il moderate income of hi
own, eXpatiates OF the disadvantages o
much riches and the lack of any. Like tn,
philosopher who wanted merely enough, HI
seems to believe that the middle condition
is best, and this he fixes at somewhere abou
5000 a year. This is a good deal more thar
most men get. 1t is more than most o
them can earn legitimately, or gain specu
latively, or acquire in the form of a legacy
They must therefore be content with less
In fact, thesum mentioned putsi its recipient
in a way to acquire tastes that are so eS
pensive as to exhaust that income and keel
him as poor as the laborer who is satisfied
with his clothes, his food, his fire and hi.
beer. That ma ought to be happy who i.
well supplied with funds, but has NJ tastes
because he is assured against want, but
that MAJ who is born with a champagne
appetite and achieves only a beer income
must ever be an object of commiseration tt
himself and to those who know him.
In days of doubt and financial %stringeucy
many families resort to economies that nj
doubt cause distress. One MAJ sold one OF
two of his half dozen horses; another rented
iiS AliiaiiS SoetpSet ~ P'S Hh' wv
yacht ont of commission, and a fourth I'm,
willingly desisted from increasing his col
lection of japanese bronzes. These re-
s~traints are as distasteful and oppressive as
the compulsion of the laborer to refrain
moderately from tenderloin steaks and the
necessity that his wife should postpone the
purchase of a bright calico dress, because
no two men have the same standards of
life, the same desires II tastes, nor the
same aptitude in the application of wealth
to comfort, knowledge and pleasure.
Poverty is a relative term, and there is no
unkempt vagrant who does not believe that
there are several tramps more ragged, more
hungry, more populous thar he. There are
some v%agabonds who never realize that
they are poor while their stomachs and to-
bacco pouches are full. Then there are
young bloods in New York who try to live
OF a beggarly $4,000 a year and can't do it.
They are always in trouble, always being
sued by inconsiderate tradesmen, always
chased by race track blacklegs, always the
prey of ballet girls, always sponged upon
by parasites, always ostracised by rich un-
Giles, always losing at cards, always sore
enough in mine and sometimes in body to
cry and always laughed at by the public,
and these gentry are in truth the poorest of
us all. When they shift into barroom
leeches and red nosed wanderers, they are
the most worthless of their species.
The Prince Of Wales, who also sets the
fashion in the color of gloves and the way
of carrying the c~ane-usually by accident
is the model that these young persons have
for their inner as well as their obvious
lives, and they even try to improve on the
pattern. When a man takes money be-
longing to another, he is a thief. When
he takes it's equivalent, the work, time and
stock Of a tailor and refuses to refund, he
is called a man of the world, and his ex-
plot is accounted as rather clever. The
Prince of Wales is q man of the world and
is clever, and his imltatnrs here want to be
clever too.
1t is the sorest disadvantage of riches
when it makes their possessor poor in spir-
it. Nobody claims that this is true in the
great majority of cases. Nobody denies its
truth in conspicuous and offensive in
stances. The poor man has the advantage
of the rich one, if he so modifes his ideas
that he can not only reach them but de-
rive that content, and compass that moral
and intellectual expansion that seem in
the human comedy to be denied to those
whose aims are toward a wholly material
prosperity and sensuous pleasures. 1t is
the adaptation of the end to the means that
Few of us need be poor.-BrOok-
lyn Eagle.