Sentence:  If we win this war and have the Cotton Kingdom of our dreams, we still have lost, for we will become a different people and the old quiet ways will go. The world will be at our doors clamoring for cotton and we can command our own price. Then, I fear, we will become like the Yankees, at whose money-making activities, <WSD>acquisitiveness</WSD> and commercialism we now sneer. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The quality of being acquisitive; propensity to acquire property; desire of possession.