The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1902-09-26
A WARNING AGAINST GREED
AND AMBITION.

The need of money comes home
with vastly increased force to the man
who has to earn that money himself,
and it requires hard struggle for him
to retain his ideals amid the pressure
Of immediate physical want. Still
harder it is for him to retain his ideal
where those about him are 80 engaged
in the winning of bread that success in
this seems to them the one test of
power which marks man as stronger
than his fellows.
But for the man who has passed
this first set of temptations toward
materialism, and who has learned to
make living without sinking all his
ideals therein, there waits more sub
tie set of temptations-the tempta-
tions of ambition. If you have pass
ed successfully the tests of the first
hard years of life in the office or the
shop, you will find wide fields of sue
cess opening before you. Where will
you seek that success? Is it to be in
the accumulation of large fortune
no longer as a means of physical COM
tort, but as means oi influencing the
actions of others? Shall it he in So
cial position among your fellow men !?
Shall it be in political Office and in the
conduct of the affairs of the nation !?
Each of these ambitions has in it much
that is noble.
The millionaire, the social leader,
the political chieftain, all have in their
hands enormous power of good. 1t is
just because Of the existence Of this
power that the danger comes close
home, and comes home closest to the
very strongest among US, of subordi-
mating all other ends to these imme-
date objects. The strong man, if he
worships money, is offered the prom.
ise of many million OF dollars; if he
worships political power, The prizes Of
office stand before his hand. Whether
they are more surely gained in this
way than any other shall not under.
take to say but certain it is that the
devil will be at hand to show you over
whelming reasons to believe that is the
only way in which they can be gain
ed--that you can commune with the
object Of your worship only by falling
down at his feet, AID forgetting that
there is any other god.
This is no common temptation, no
vulgar craving for bread to satisfy
hunger; no equally vulgar, though
more intellectual desire for authority
over ones fellows. 1t is the desire of
the strong man, conscious of his pow
er, to assert that power in the face of
all nature To do something out of
the common run of work, something
whose possibilities have been unreal
lied by the vulgar mind-this is the
dream which all great men cherish
and to which some ofthem Subordinate
everything else. To dazzle the world
by campaigns like those Of Napoleon,
by achievements in literature like those
of Goethe, or TO achieve the almost
miraculous discoveries which have
awaited the pioneers in literature and
science-these are prizes to attract the
ambition and unsteady judgment Of
any man. And even among those
who do not delude themselves with
the belief that they are set apart from
thc common LOT. the temptation to sac
rtirc all other considerations to those
of professional ambition and to sink
the man in the achievement comes
with forces we'll nigh irresistible.