The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1906-10-18
IN SERVICE OF THE RICH.
Chaplains, Lawyers and Doctors
Hired by Owners of Wealth.

aho DOCtOHa
Hired by Owners of Wealth.
The growth of enormous fortunes in
the United States is bringing back the
old English fashion of ligb-class do
nestle service. The amelioration Of
manners in England has made this
fashion less conspicuous that it was
when an immortal genius like Jonathan
Swift was the domestic chaplain of Il
mere statesman like Sir William Tenn
pie.
In that time the domestic chaplain
was an upper servant who received less
consideration than the modern butler.
and the family lawyer was a function
airy of hardly more worth and dignity.
The family doctor, having the power of
life and death, may have been treated
with more civility, but the trials Of tu
tors and governesses in wealthy fami-
lies always have been fruitful topic
of pathetic fiction.
The fashion is coming back to the ex-
cessive rich of the United States with
complicated difference. Clergymen
are no longer members of the domestic
circle of the rich men they serve and
fiatter. The rich men are simply the
chief support of the churches over
which they preside. But the bread and
butter of the clergymen still depends
on the favor of the rich men, and the
obligation of hardly disguised servil-
ity is as strong as ever.
The retirement of the pastor Of what
is called the Rockefeller church in New
York calls attention to the fact that
the richest man in America is the pa
iron of two churches and great uni
versity, whose heads, 1t Is asserted,
have to practice their profession with
q constant eye upon his interest and
his whims. The cause of DR.. John
ston's retirement is mystery. First
it was said he was to succeed DR.. Har-
per.
Now it is said that some of his timid
animadversions upon the arrogance of
wealth and the evils of Wall street
gambling have given offense in power
full quarters and that he feels that his
work as pastor has been belittled by
the disproportionate developments of
the Rockefeller Bible class. These ru-
mors have no particular interest except
for the light they throw upon the spe-
cial relation that is supposed to exist
between a clergyman and his richest
parishioners.
| The high class domestic service of
the excessive rich Is not confined to the
cure of souls. Cases are not uncom-
mon where a lawyer or physician prac-
tees his profession for the sole benefit
of wealthy man. In the case of law
yers the personal service Is more often
disguised under employment by cor
poration In which the rich man Is the
chief owner For the family doctor os
English tradition We have the general
counsel # a great corporation taking
his orders from its president.
Often the legitimate legal service OF
general counsel runs into every kind
of obscure personal service to great
stockholders. When Chauncey Depew
was general counsel for the New York
Central, he served and touted for the
rich Vanderbilt family everywhere
from the dinner table to the Legislature
at Albany. The humiliations of an
cient domestic chaplains are recalled
by the refusal of one of the Vanderbilt
women to receive him at her table on
the ground that her own butler had no
1 scat there.