Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-22
Washington as a Plutocrat.

Some ingenious person has lately been at
work computing George Washington's
wealth and figuring out that he would have
stood today among the plutocrats by reason
of his good business judgment and his ac-
quistive tendency. He estimates that
Washington was worth at least half
million dollars when he died and applying
the rule of proportion he concludes that
the first President. If living in these days
of great ventures, would he magnate.
perhaps one of the richest of men
This is an interesting if not a very prof
liable. speculation. George Washingtons
fame. however. has already unjustly suf-
fered enough from the charge that he was
a grtsHing man. Critics have quoted
unfairly from his diary and correspond
ence to prove that he drove hard bargains
and was always intent upon the main
chance. A full reading of all the volumf-
nous papers relating to Washington how
ever. will not bear out this theory. He was
n careful man in his management. 1t is
true and he shrewdly knew the value of
money and goods He bought in the low
est market and sold in the highest. But
no one can read his letters to Tobias Lear
without realizing that with all his remark
able capacity for details and his insistence
pulously fair in his dealings with men and
was often liberal He suffered much in
pocket from the disposition of others to
impose upon him. and his occasional acts
of correction and his words of admonition
were evidently the result of breaking pa
tienCc.
Were Washington alive today and en-
gagged n practical affairs as we'll as in polit-
ical activity he would probably take rank
with the great captains of industry. He
had the creative spirit and the far vision of
the pioneer and the developer. He would
have been in all likelihood a railroad presi-
dent. extending his lines and maintaining
them upon the highest possible plane of
efficiency. Whether he would have been
Hill or Hartman must be left to the'im-
agnltion, bat there is reason to doubt this.
He was essentially a law abiding man. who
respected the spirit as we'll as the letter Of
the statutes. He possessed clear view of
distant dangers, and it may be questioned
whether his acquisitiveness would have led
him into enterprises inmical to the indus
trial Eealth of the country. Rather may it
be assumed. with reason. that the course of
washington as a magnate would have been
In the direction Of scrupulous observance
OF the basic economical laws. together with
profound respect for the laws of man.
All speculation to what this or that
great man of the past would do in modern
circumstances is necessarily futile for it is
undeniable that environment affects the
character to some extent and George
Washington. as an instance may have been
Influenced by the moral atmosphere of the
period sufficiently to weaken his principles
However. it is fair only to assume the
translated Washington would have been
unchanged in nature Indeed, it is difficult
to conceive the case otherwise He was
not changed by his good fortune in his
OWN day. He died the same honest. I'M
right, honorable man that he was when he
first took up arms against British tyranny.
His old friends found no alteration in him
after the extravagant praise bestowed upon
him as a military leader or after the high
honors that were laid at his feet when the
new nation had assumed organic fern. A
close reading of his farewell address sug-
gests no undue exaltation, but rather a
sense of responsibility, of an infinite sad
ness in provision.
George Washington would doubtless TODAY
measure up with the ablest of men. even
though he might incidentally amass vast
wealth That he would assume the role of
a wise philanthropist and dispose inte,ii-
gently and constructively of his surpIus
none can doubt. He would probably live
after the grand style to which he was in
MS own time accustomed and to which he
was we'll suited by nature and temnera-
ment. There was nothing little about him.
even VITA all his remarkable faculty for
details. 1t was that quality of attention to
the m!nutae that made him great I'm the
larger aspects of life.