The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-03-05
WORTH CONSIDERING.

The question of the limitation of in
heritance, which has been recently
argued in New York is we'll worthy
OF consideration. The enormous masses
of money, or rather of interests which
fall as heirship to irresponsible per-
sons are one of the present dangers
OF the modern system. The results of
what might happen are very clearly set
forth in the celebrated story when
the Sleeper Awakes," where present
combinations of labor saving make the
rich ever richer, and the poor ever
poorer, working upon the planes that
we are now doing. The story of
when the Sleeper Awakes," has not
the vogue which Bellamys Looking
Backward had, because Bellamys
was utterly Utopian and pandered to
that hope which is inherent in the HUI
man breast the hope which is to right
every wrong, and bring human nature
to complete heavenly fruition.
The argument used by President
Walter 1. Logan in his address to the
New York State Bar Association curl
Ously deals with exactly such a phase
as is discussed in Mr.. Wells novel.
President Logan has nothing to do
with the right of a person to accumu-
late all he can in his life time, and
spending his accumulations as he will
He does, however, object to the trans
mission of these accumulations by will
or inheritapce after death.
He says: "A live mans claim to
live in the house that he has built has
its foundation in the best of logic, but
the claim of a man of the right to live
there after he is dead, or to dictate as
to who shall continue to occupy it
when he can have. no more need of it
himself, has no such clear, logical
basis The earth is barely large enough
for the people who are living on it now.
If it is to be incumbered by the corpses
or the spirits or the testaments of all
who have gone before live people will
have poor show"
But one is apt to think that Presi-
dent Logan does not go far enough
He is sound enough about dead men,
but he is by no means sound about live
men and combinations of live men. He
would reduce dead mems fortunes, if
he sees the true tendency of the world
he would argue to reduce live mems
fortunes. There is never a charitable
deed done by Rockefeller of the oil trust
but what one thinks of the thousands
of homes wrecked by that relentless
corporation, and one considers that
every dollar given of all the millions
that have been poured forth for educa-
tion and charity is splashed with the
blood of a ruined homestead. To know
how true this is read Wealth versus
Commonwealth" a book that has never
been refuted, and which is terrible in
its realistic and plain statement of
fact.
In the middle ages the dying Baron
used to deed his i'll gotten lands in a
small part to the church, and thus
hoped and often believed he saved his
soul. He would endow chapel where,
as Ingoldsby says,
''Twenty-four monks and twenty-four
nuns,
Would feed upon lettuce and hot cross
buns"
But the modern sinner, builds no chap
el. He has no candles, no bell or
other paraphernalia, but he endows
libraries, and universities and then his
trustees carefully go to work and try
TO gag free thought in them. It is
doubtful whether the modern sinner is
quarter as honest as the medieval
blackguard
If it could be so arranged that neither
individuals nor corporations could
grasp the enormous powers they now
are able to grasp and to transmit, it
might be considerably to the advan-
tage of the generality of the human
race. But we all have to pass through
an evolution, and our own era is no
more stable than many eras that have
proceeded ours. The Cynic looking on
says "Cui bono" or rather he said it
two thousand years ago, and the echo
comes to us through those dead and
silent avenues of time.