The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-26
Mr.. CIark's Wealth.

~ he country has been indebted to
the Baltimore American during
the past six or seven months
for many interesting sidelights on the
life, the character, the habits, the liter
airy and aesthetic tastes of Mr.. w. A.
Clark of Butte. Like the doting mother
of a charming debutante, fresh
with all the witcheries of beauty, youth
and grace. the Baltimore newspaper is
anxious that in his introduction to
Washington society Mr.. Clark shall
appear to his very best advantage;
that all his varied accomplishments
shall be known and appreciated that
he shall command the unalloyed re-
spect and admiration of the entire bail
room as a noble and discriminating
patron of the fine arts, a thoroughly
cultivated man Of letters, prince and
paragon of entertainers, refined,
polished and fascinating arbiter eligan-
tiarum, and above all a financier whose
genius at making money is as colossal
as his fortune is fabulous. In the
American last Thursday, for instance,
appears this paragraph:
Senator Clark of Montana, in speaking
of his wealth the other day, said he really
did not know its precise extent 1T has
increased so rapidly" he adoed. that l
am now unable to estimate even the ae-
gregate of my possessions
Mr.. Clark is rich; exceedingly rich:
and amid all the fluctuations to which
a fortune so vast as his is necessarily
subject, it may be doubted If he ever
was richer than when he announced his
inability ito estimate even the aggre-
gate of my possessions" There is
richness about that remark that far
outshines the wealth of Ormus and of
Ind. Mr.. Clark is positively, undenia-
bly,, superlatively rich.
We take it, however, that Mr.. Clark
was speaking in an absolute, rather
than a relative or comparative, sense.
What he meant was that he would not
undertake to submit an estimate of the
aggregate of his possessions the APP
proximate accuracy Of which he could
guarantee, as an architect might guar
antee the upset cost of house. At
rough guess Mr.. Clark could probably
hit the aggregate of his possessions
within a latitude of fifty or sixty mil
lions or so. He must know with rea-
sonable exactitude whether he has
passed the $500,O00 900 mark, or is still
| grubbing away in the vicinity of $780,
| 900, 900. Wealth Is defined by political
economists as consisting of all agree
| able or useful things which possess ex-
uo1,,a IF Mr. clark made
| innate with this definition in mind,
| he might size up his pile to within $685.
| 600, 600 of the total Adam Smith, fol-
lowed by Ricardo and John Stuart
| Mill makes a fine but just distinction
| between value and riches. Not all of
mans possessions would bring him in
anywhere near what they cost him, or
what he deems them in his own mind
| to be worth. Take, for example, a seat
| in the United States senate. Its orig
| inal cost may have been s750,00o, and
| to perfect his title to it man might be
willing to put up $5,0000o0 more. Now,
| it may be a possession" all right, all
right, but 1t Is not an asset, for its ex-
| change value is not two bits.
The Standard has made this digres-
| sion not with any idea of instructing
| Mr.. Clark in the rudiments of political
economy, a science in which he is
thoroughly versed, but simply to en-
able rank outsiders, if they are so in
clined, to try their hands at estimating
Mr.. Clark's true worth. Mr.. Clark him
self modestly declines to furnish an
estimate. True, he says he cannot
make one; but that, of course, Is
polite evasion, attributable to diffidence
and reserve-there is nothing SO alb
horrent to Mr.. Clark as ostentation.
Like the wardrobe Polonius recon-
mended to Laertes, Mr.. Clark is rich
not gaudy."