Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1902-04-11
10 MCDILL S MUSINGS.
THE WEALTH.GETTI:R.

THE VEAL LIf.uE Ii.K.
The farming class of people are about the only
honest people left, and most of them you could
not trust in your melon patch, or behind pro-
hibition door. The premium on dishonesty is
catching, and people, generally, are beginning
to believe that to be "poor boy" and get rich
is the acme of earthly bliss, and the top round
of honorable fame. All the great meu were
"poor boys" originally, and all the founders OF
the great tom.tom millionaire families were
''poor boys" with only just mouse-trap to stait
on. Some farmers who are getting on in the
world have taken up the cry of "On to wealth" "
They are proud to say they were "poor boys. "
TO be candid, 1 am awfully afraid of "poo1
boy" not but what like energy and industry,
and like to see men up and on the 90, but be-
cause that, when rich men set up the "yoop''
of starting poor, there is generally ''nigger in
the woodpile."
Thousands and tens of thousands of poor
boys never get rich, though they are industrious,
energetic and temperate, simply because the
wealth they possess is the fruit of honest toll.
The old-tashioned notion that to acquire
wealth honestly, one must perform some kind
of service that is the equivalent of the wealth,
is out of date. The new-fashicned notion is
that the more wealth you can get that you did
mot earn, or for which you did not return an
equivalent, the better. and the more honorable.
No man with an ounce of brains believes that
any man, within lifetime, can accumulate more
than few thousand dollars worth of wealth,
if he confines his Efforts strictly to taking the
price paid for service in any of the fields of in
dustry. If man farms, and takes the price
paid for grain or stock, he cannot produce
enough of surplus to yield him more than
comfortable existence and a competence for old
age. The wages paid miners, employees in manu-
factories, on railroads, or for teaching, even
under the most favorable circumstances, yields
ne more than decent living. The lawyers
fortune is bounded by the number of his clients,
OF the Doctors by his patients. 1t is the man
who buys cheap and sells at an advance that
gets on.
In the buying and selling, the merchant takes
chances where there is competition. To get on,
and, f,om poor boy, rise to opulence, he must
be in position to largely control prices. If
the bu, er can force the price for what is bought,
and compel the price paid in the selling, it is
as easy to get rich as falling off a saw-log.
Ii man can buy land when it is cheap,
or town lots, and hold until growing population
enhances the price of his purchases through
growing demand, he, also, can get rich without
worry or toll. If men Can acquire possession Of
gold mines, or any other kind of mine, for
song, and force men, through their necessities,
to work the mines for pittance, and then sell
the product of the mines at large advance
over cost, they also are wealth getters, but they
do not belong to the army of honest laborers
who return an equivalent for what they receive
If man can corner the necessities of the hu.
man family, with or without the aid of govern
ment, be has soft snap in the way of getting
wealth, but, his heart is as black as North Caro-
lima tar and as hard as the heart of fend.
The money-lender who not only loans his
money, but also his credit, at good interest, is
also doing well as wealth-getter.