The Washburn leader., 1901-03-16
CHEAT FORTUNES.
THEY MAY BE ABSORBED BY
THE PEOPLE.

THE PEOPLE.
fhs Big Corporations VIII Doubtless
Rsmsin, says Tisis Wrtter, but the
Ownership Of Their Bonds and Stocks
VIII Change Rapidly. v
Apropos Of trusts and great estates,
writer in the New York Press COM
mends to public thought the saying at
tributed to Mr.. P. A. B. Widener, that
mo one need worry about the trusts;
the people will have all the stock with
in a few generations :" The remark
contains the essence of what many be-
lieve will be the future Of the enor-
nous fortunes gathered in the present
generation. Such fortunes, it is
thought, must and will be dissipated,
just as the great landed properties of
the past have slowly passed from the
hands of single individuals into those
of small owners. To quote the sub
stance of the article referred to: Where
are the great landlords Of one hundred
years ago between whom was parceled
out the best acres of the state Of New
York-the Van Rensselaers, Living
stones, Schuylers, Morrises, Macombs?
Vanished in the smoke of the anti-rent
war nigh sixty years since or living
on the returns Of some urban fragment
of their vast holdings. Where are the
bankers and merchant princes" of a
somewhat later day, whose seats lined
the banks of the Hudson and the
shores Of Staten island? In one after
another of successive panics the "great
old houses" went down. Their places
know them not, and no trace Of their
Of Philip Homes diary. In free So
clety man may bequeath wealth, but
unless he may also beQueath unto the
latest gensration the brains to preserve
wealth he may not provide for the per-
petuation of wealth. Where wealth has
remained for generations in the same
families it has not been free society.
It has been one in which the power Of
acquiring wealth by those who have it
not has been systematically. in some
cases severely, repressed. The chateaux
of the French noblesse passed for CEN
turtles from sire to son, not because Of
the existence of social and political
system which prevented the growth of
any class of owners save those who
held them. The priests had all the
learning. The guilds had all the handi-
craft. The peasant was beast Of bur-
den who, 1t was carefully provided, II
we follow. Felix Gras, should not be
kept quite as we'll as the siegneur's
beasts of the chase-his horses and
hounds. Had there been free school
at every crossroad, savings bank In
every town and In all the land the op-
portunity for men to follow what voca-
tions they chose, there would have
been no need of appropriation to break
up the great estates which ruined
monarchical France as surely as they
ruined imperial Rome. The great
American estates of the future seem
likely to be not in lands, but in shares
in great business ventures. The great
corporations will doubtless remain for
as tar as mortal sight can see. But
the ownership Of their bonds and
stocks will change far more rapidly
than has that Of land in England or in
this state, where land was originally
held in great estates, according to Eng
lish system. The heir of manor
needs know only enough to collect his
rents. The heir of group Of iron
mills must know enough to conduct q
great business in the face Of a compe-
tition which makes fractions of cents
count into millions of dollars, and
which, consequently, makes any large
miscalculation spell ruin for the great
estate. No heir can be born with such
a knowledge and few with the capacity
to acquire it. The result will be the
withdrawal Of the names now connect
ed with great industrial ventures by
voluntary or involuntary process. II
young Billion is wise he will put his
trust patrimony in government bonds
or New York city real estate. II he is
unwise he will keep on till his hy-
pothecated stock goes the same way
that young Squire Squanderfeld's
mortgaged acres used to go. The
trusts" will be managed and in great
part owned by those few men whom
each generation supplies with capacity
to manage them.