The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-01-07
a &c roR 100


A good name is rather to be chosen. than
great riehes.-Proverbs 22:4
This proverb Of King Solomon is quot
ed so often that it seems almost useless
to repeat it. Nearly every thinking
person viii concede its truth ia the alb
stract yet 50 many. many men-and
women, too-deny it in practice that
Memory is strewn with the remem-
brance Of ruined lives and wrecked rep
utations. lost in the pursuit Of riches.
Probably very few people start in life
with the deliberate intention of sacri-
ficing their good names-their reputa-
tion-for mere wealth. But they be-
come intoxicated in the pursuit Of
money. and when the temptation comes
to do something just little wrong they
yield. Unfortunately for them, per-
haps, their wrong-doing gains its end
and goes undiscovered. The temptation
to do something worse presents itself.
again they yield, and again they are not
found out. The practice grows little by
little, and in the same degree their
moral sense is blunted. Eventually they
do as a matter of course things which
the strictly honorable man would abb
hor, and when the opportunity comes
to commit some absolute crime they are
easy victims.
Perhaps they are able to cover up
their crimes for years, but at last must
come a day of reckoning Then the
whole miserable story is laid bare, and
they are scorned of men. No amount
OF money can buy the respect of decent
people.
A conspicuous example Of a man who
forfeited his good name for wealth and
then tried in vain to buy it back was
the late Charles T. Yerkes. Mr. Yerkes
had a natural gift for making money,
and even early in his career it led him
to be an accomplice in the misuse of
public funds, for which he was sent to
prison. Upon his release he determined
to retrieve his reputation, bat he went
about it in the wrong way. His talent
and his passion for wealth-getting
led him to devote himself to the accum-
ulation of riches, and while he ever af-
forwards succeeded in keeping free from
the law, his moral sense was SO blunted
that his methods were absolutely dis
reputable.
In Chicago, where Yerkes made his
fame as a traction builder, he has left
behind him a reputation as one OF the
worst of corruptionists. A Kansas boy
went to Chicago in 1898 to see the
Worlds fair. At that time Yerkes was
dominating Chicago as traction mag
nate, and the Chicago papers which ne
did not control were full of denuneia-
ton of him for stealing franchises from
the city by bribery and corruption. The
boy from the prairies was amazed that
the people of Chicago would allow
man whom everybody conceded was
guiltv of the crimes of which he was
publicly accused daily in the newspa-
pers. to go UNPUBLISHED. And yet the
same thing has happened in Kansas!
Yerkes piled millions upon millions
through his corruption in Chicago-and
then he began to try to regain the re-
sDect of his fellow men, He turned his
attention to philanthropy. He alded
educational and scientific enterprises,
( and newspapers that he eontrolleo
prafsed him. But men would not re-
spect him, nor would self-respectlng
women receive his wife into their cir
! cles. His blunted moral sense DOUBT
/ less made it difficult for him to dis
| tinguish- between right and wrong. lie
I left the scene of his corrupt successes
/ and went across the seas to accumulate
more millions, but still men refused
him the homage of their honor ana
their respect.
The other day the end came to Charles
/ IT Yerkes: and along with the discovery
that he had left some of his millions to
philanthropy came the unmasking of his
private life that he had succeeded, in
/ a degree at least, in keeping hidden.
Z nnG
/ of iniuuity came stalking forth and, not
withstanding his philanthropy, Charles
r. Yerlzes went to his grave more
scorned by the world than ever before.
The corruption practiced by Yerkes in
his business dealings may have had
nothing to do with his private life and
yet as was pointed out in these col
umns not long ago, the man who habit
ually breaks the eighth commandment
will not be troubled over a fracture Of
! the seventh and vice versa.
/ It is not Mr. Yerkes' wealth that
makes his name a reproach among men
today, but it was the methods he used
to acquire it. Very likely with his great
talents he might have amassed a great
fortune and retained his good name and
the respect Of his fellows, but in his
haste for wealth he chose to sacrifice
his reputation.
It is better to come to the end of
ones life with little OF this world S
goods but with the kindly feeling, the
respect and the good will of ones world,
than it is to. possess the wealth OF a
/ Rockefeller if it must stand as monu-
ment of infamy, oppression and wrong
/ doing.
& aaa4