Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1912-10-02
FRANCE DOES
WITH SWOLLEN FORTUNES

t~hirty-hve years, has returned to
America from Europe, where he
amuses himself, TO receive, accord
ing to the terms Of his fathers will,
the second half Of his inheritance
which has been estimated at six
ty-eight million dollars.
This interesting item in the days
news, coupled with the recent set
Element upon Mr.. Vincent Astor, &
boy of twenty of a fortune half again
as large as that of Mr.. Vanderbilt,
should furnish thoughtful Americans
with a text Of sober reflection.
There runs through the history of
English law a tradition of unremit-
ting struggle against primogeniture,
entail and all the other feudal de-
vices, whereby great fortunes could
be piled up higher and higher from
generation to generation. Indeed. it
has always been instinctively felt
by all the progressive races Of Eu-
rope that nations can not prosper if
the fortunes of great families are
massed and segregated from common
life.
Nothing is clearer in the early his
tory Of the United States than the
INTENTION of the fathers of the Re-
public to prevent hat CLOTHING and
congestion of hereditary wealth
which had ruined so many old-world
peoples-and. incidentally, so many
young men so enriched. If, therefore,
the fundamental State and Federal
laws Of America do not provide ade-
quate safeguards against the dead
hand of heredity, the reason is that
our Jurisprudence WIS run into a fixed
mould at too early a period-when
the dangers that go with the mod
ern development of corporate power
had not yet been made apparent. The
makers Of our Constitution forbid tie
ing up American estates by entail-as
vast British estates are kept intact
for many generations-but could not
~foresee the colossal fortunes now
made in ever one generation in this
land Of wonderful energy and appor-
tunities.
France has done better than we
have in this matter. It's code Nap
oleon is flexible. 1t has been adapted
better than ours to modern condi-
lions in this respect.
BY narrower limitations laid upon
the powers of testators, by rigorous
insistence upon the substantial par
ticipation Of all heirs in the fortunes
Of defendants, and by a high scale
Of death dues payable to the State
a scale which rises from twenty
nine per cent of a dead mans mill
lions in some cases-the French Re-
public has effectually prevented the
perpetuation Of such fortunes as those
of our RockefeIlers, Vanderbilts and
Astors.
The Americans Paris correspond
ent, in the demafAable letter we
published on Sunday, September 1,
showed in detail how the French
people have become the most thrifty
people in the world. With earnings
for each individual much smaller than
our own, the French people have SOL
we'd the secrets of saving and of
thrift: of making small farms pay,
of keeping swollen fortune under
some restraint, of a financial system
which lends to small farmers or mer-
chants at lower rates than to mere
notwithstanding we reverse this
latter condition. And the French peo-
pie have become the money lenders
of all Europe. No money trust"
there. nor many money princes, but
Ithirty-eight millions of people with
more money to lend than any other
nation.
The American believes and has
long maintained that laws Of SINH
lar character ought to be applied in
this country.
The people of the United States
are not jealous of rich men. On the
contrary they rejoice when wealth
even very great wealth-is allied to
great constructive power. There is no
ent, in the remarkable letter we
wealth that a creative genius-like
Mr.. Edison, for example-can bring
into existence. And there is no assay
liable limit to the amount Of working
capital that such men can use and vi
talize for the good of society at large.
What the American people object
to is not live wealth, but dead wealth
wealth that stagnates in the hands
OF incompetents, or mere idlers and