The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-13
HErrY GREEN'S ADY1cE.

HETTY GREEN'S ADVICE.
Hetty, Green is remarkable woman.
She is remarkable not because she has
husband with whom she is not on the
best terms, but because she has money
and ideas, principally money. Her ideas.
are regarded as more remarkable on ac-.
count of the money. This is not peculiar
to Hetty Green, but applies to all men
and all women who have money obtained
either 4byu purchase or by inheritance.
Hetty has just given birth to an idea
which is receiving more than ordinary
attention, because, while it, is in direct
line with the theory of evolution and the
admitted principles of heredity, it is so
imprac ticable that it appears startling.
Hetty is not in the habit of giving birth
or'5voiee to9'impracticabIe ideas. She is
nothing if, not practical Therefore the
unusual interest in the idea.
The idea is that young men should be-
gin where their fathers left off, or where
their mothers left off. The labors of the
great railroad kings should be taken up
by their sons right where they left it.
The-sons of poets, -novelists, painters and
EDITORS should step into the shoes of their
defunct paters and without break, but
with the accumulated inertia of the accu-
mulated experience of their immediate
ancestors, continue to write poetry and
novels paint pictures and discuss poll.
cies, not only as well as their fathers.
but better. A young Dickens and a
young Hawthorne ought to do. better than
an old Dickens and an old Hawthorne
A young Kipling should outkipling his
father, and young Vanderbilt should go
his father one better and "let the public
be double damned" This theory of the
energetic Hetty is all right, but it doesn't
work in actual experience. AS the sons of
preachers are supposed to be imbued with
the spirit of evil in proportion to the
piety of their siress so the sons of great
men, in both politics and finance, man
age to reverse the reputation of their be-
getters and average up the mental and
financial factor of the race.
: This is, perhaps, wise provision of
Providence, designed to keep the human
family from unequal development, while
the general raj center of gravity is constant
ly advancing.
The strongest force making for evol12
ton is, not heredity but work. The
poor boy with a reasonably clear head
and healthy body, having before him
the example of successful men and the
necessity for constant labor of both head
and hand, forces himself by his OWE
dynamic inertia past the son of the rich
man who inherits his fathers wealth but
not his fathers original circumstances
with their pressing incentive to labor
The pretty girl graduate in her white
and pink tells us every spring that "there
is no royal road to learning" We can
not imagine where she gets this peren-
NAL aphorism, but she comes up smiling
with it every June as regularly as bloom
the roses. The principle is paralyzingly
true So is the twin expression spouted
by, the boy graduate there is no royal
road to success" We realize that these
expressions are meaningless to the
sweet girl and the bold boy, but to men
and women of mature age and a little
experience, the meaning is painfully plain.
Hetty ought to know this, but possibly
amid the cares of her financial success
she has forgotten it. as
We realize the fact that exceptions ex-
list. The Gould boys took up the work
of their father and have disappointed
their enemiesI But as if to keep this
example from being too noted, Anna
Gould, the Wife Boni de Castellane, has
been doing her best to dissipate the Gould
gold. =
The families of the vanderbi1ts and the
Astors have managed to hold their own,
but they are exceptions, not the rule
Where a rich mans son has made
marked success it has been owing to the
fact that ''pater" made him work
made him begin at the bottom of the
ladder and work up. True, the .'old
mails money helped him in way, but
IL was the work, the rough and tum-
BILE experiences that made it possible for
him to stand up against the sbufrets Of
the crowd, when the prop was removed
No, while Hetty's theory may work
sometimes. it can never become uni
versaL Nature is against it. To be-