We accept and welcome . . . as conditions to
which we must accommodate ourselves great inequality of environment, the
concentration of business—industrial and commercial—in the hands of a
few, and the law of competition between these as being not only
beneficial but essential for the future progress of the race. Having
accepted these, it follows that there must be great scope for the
exercise of special ability in the merchant and in the manufacturer who
has to conduct affairs upon a great scale. That this talent for
organization and management is rare among men is proved by the fact that
it invariably secures for its possessor enormous rewards, no matter
where or under what laws or conditions. The experienced in affairs
always rate the man whose services can be obtained as a partner as not
only the first consideration but such as to render the question of his
capital scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create capital;
while, without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings.
Such
men become interested in firms or corporations using millions; and
estimating only simple interest to be made upon the capital invested, it
is inevitable that their income must exceed their expenditures and that
they must accumulate wealth. Nor is there any middle ground which such
men can occupy, because the great manufacturing or commercial concern
which does not earn at least interest upon its capital soon becomes
bankrupt. It must either go forward or fall behind: to stand still is
impossible. It is a condition essential for its successful operation
that it should be thus far profitable, and even that, in addition to
interest on capital, it should make profit. It is a law, as certain as
any of the others named, that men possessed of this peculiar talent for
affairs, under the free play of economic forces, must, of necessity,
soon be in receipt of more revenue than can be judiciously expended upon
themselves; and this law is as beneficial for the race as the others.
Objections
to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order because
the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with
any others which have been tried. Of the effect of any new substitutes
proposed, we cannot be sure. The socialist or anarchist who seeks to
overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the
foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for civilization took
its start from the day that the capable, industrious workman said to his
incompetent and lazy fellow, “If thou dost not sow, thou shalt not
reap,” and thus ended primitive Communism by separating the drones from
the bees. One who studies this subject will soon be brought face to face
with the conclusion that upon the sacredness of property civilization
itself depends—the right of the laborer to his $100 in the savings bank,
and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.
To
those who propose to substitute Communism for this intense
individualism the answer, therefore, is: The race has tried that. All
progress from that barbarous day to the present time has resulted from
its displacement. Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the
accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that
produce it. But even if we admit for a moment that it might be better
for the race to discard its present foundation, individualism—that it is
a nobler ideal that man should labor, not for himself alone but in and
for a brotherhood of his fellows and share with them all in common,
realizing Swedenborg’s idea of heaven, where, as he says, the angels
derive their happiness, not from laboring for self but for each
other—even admit all this, and a sufficient answer is: This is not
evolution, but revolution.
It necessitates the changing of human
nature itself—a work of aeons, even if it were good to change it, which
we cannot know. It is not practicable in our day or in our age. Even if
desirable theoretically, it belongs to another and long-succeeding
sociological stratum. Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the
next step possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste
our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or
possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a little
in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under
existing circumstances.
We might as well urge the destruction of
the highest existing type of man because he failed to reach our ideal as
to favor the destruction of individualism, private property, the law of
accumulation of wealth, and the law of competition; for these are the
highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far
has produced the best fruit. Unequally or unjustly, perhaps, as these
laws sometimes operate, and imperfect as they appear to the idealist,
they are, nevertheless, like the highest type of man, the best and most
valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished.
We start,
then, with a condition of affairs under which the best interests of the
race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to the few. Thus
far, accepting conditions as they exist, the situation can be surveyed
and pronounced good. The question then arises—and, if the foregoing be
correct, it is the only question with which we have to deal—What is the
proper mode of administering wealth after the laws upon which
civilization is founded have thrown it into the hands of the few? And it
is of this great question that I believe I offer the true solution. It
will be understood that fortunes are here spoken of, not moderate
sums saved by many years of effort, the returns from which are required
for the comfortable maintenance and education of families. This is not
wealth but only competence, which it should be the aim of all to
acquire.
There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be
disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can
be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered
during their lives by its possessors. Under the first and second modes
most of the wealth of the world that has reached the few has hitherto
been applied. Let us in turn consider each of these modes.
The
first is the most injudicious. In monarchical countries, the estates and
the greatest portion of the wealth are left to the first son that the
vanity of the parent may be gratified by the thought that his name and
title are to descend to succeeding generations unimpaired. The condition
of this class in Europe today teaches the futility of such hopes or
ambitions. The successors have become impoverished through their follies
or from the fall in the value of land. Even in Great Britain the strict
law of entail has been found inadequate to maintain the status of an
hereditary class. Its soil is rapidly passing into the hands of the
stranger. Under republican institutions the division of property among
the children is much fairer, but the question which forces itself upon
thoughtful men in all lands is: Why should men leave great fortunes to
their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided
affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well
for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for
the state. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources
of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons,
men may well hesitate, for it is no longer questionable that great sums
bequeathed oftener work more for the injury than for the good of the
recipients. Wise men will soon conclude that, for the best interests of
the members of their families and of the state, such bequests are an
improper use of their means.
It is not suggested that men who have
failed to educate their sons to earn a livelihood shall cast them
adrift in poverty. If any man has seen fit to rear his sons with a view
to their living idle lives, or, what is highly commendable, has
instilled in them the sentiment that they are in a position to labor for
public ends without reference to pecuniary considerations, then, of
course, the duty of the parent is to see that such are provided for in
moderation. There are instances of millionaires' sons unspoiled by
wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services in the community.
Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they
are rare; still it is not the exception but the rule that men must
regard, and, looking at the usual result of enormous sums conferred upon
legatees, the thoughtful man must shortly say, “I would as soon leave
to my son a curse as the almighty dollar,” and admit to himself that it
is not the welfare of the children but family pride which inspires these
enormous legacies.
As to the second mode, that of leaving wealth
at death for public uses, it may be said that this is only a means for
the disposal of wealth, provided a man is content to wait until he is
dead before it becomes of much good in the world. Knowledge of the
results of legacies bequeathed is not calculated to inspire the
brightest hopes of much posthumous good being accomplished. The cases
are not few in which the real object sought by the testator is not
attained, nor are they few in which his real wishes are thwarted. In
many cases the bequests are so used as to become only monuments of his
folly.
It is well to remember that it requires the exercise of not
less ability than that which acquired the wealth to use it so as to be
really beneficial to the community. Besides this, it may fairly be said
that no man is to be extolled for doing what he cannot help doing, nor
is he to be thanked by the community to which he only leaves wealth at
death. Men who leave vast sums in this way may fairly be thought men who
would not have left it at all had they been able to take it with them.
The memories of such cannot be held in grateful remembrance, for there
is no grace in their gifts. It is not to be wondered at that such
bequests seem so generally to lack the blessing.
The growing
disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a
cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public
opinion. The state of Pennsylvania now takes—subject to some
exceptions—one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget
presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase
the death duties; and, most significant of all, the new tax is to be a
graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who
continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which
for public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel
that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived
of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks
its condemnation of the selfish millionaire’s unworthy life.
It is
desirable that nations should go much further in this direction.
Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man’s
estate which should go at his death to the public through the agency of
the state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at
nothing upon moderate sums to dependents and increasing rapidly as the
amounts swell, until, of the millionaire’s hoard as of Shylock’s, at
least——-The other half comes to the privy coffer of the state.
This
policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the
administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society
should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the
people. Nor need it be feared that this policy would sap the root of
enterprise and render men less anxious to accumulate, for to the class
whose ambition it is to leave great fortunes and be talked about after
their death, it will attract even more attention, and, indeed, be a
somewhat nobler ambition to have enormous sums paid over to the state
from their fortunes.
There remains, then, only one mode of using
great fortunes; but in this we have the true antidote for the temporary
unequal distribution of wealth, the reconciliation of the rich and the
poor—a reign of harmony—another ideal, differing, indeed, from that of
the Communist in requiring only the further evolution of existing
conditions, not the total overthrow of our civilization. It is founded
upon the present most intense individualism, and the race is prepared to
put it in practice by degrees whenever it pleases. Under its sway we
shall have an ideal state in which the surplus wealth of the few will
become, in the best sense, the property of the many, because
administered for the common good; and this wealth, passing through the
hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation
of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people
themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this and to agree that
great sums gathered by some of their fellow citizens and spent for
public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are
more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of
many years in trifling amounts.
Poor and restricted are our
opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best work most
imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon.
They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in
organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will
derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. The highest
life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of
Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us but, while animated by Christ’s spirit,
by recognizing the changed conditions of this age and adopting modes of
expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which
we live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the
essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner.
This,
then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: first, to set an
example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or
extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those
dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues
which come to him simply as trust funds which he is called upon to
administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the
manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most
beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the
mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their
service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer,
doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves. . . .
In
bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who
will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who
desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids
by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all.
Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those
worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance.
The really valuable men of the race never do, except in cases of
accident or sudden change. Everyone has, of course, cases of individuals
brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine
good, and these he will not overlook. But the amount which can be wisely
given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his
lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the
only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the
unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in
almsgiving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by
relieving virtue. . . .
Thus is the problem of rich and poor to be
solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of
distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will
be but a trustee for the poor; entrusted for a season with a great part
of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the
community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The
best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race
in which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of
surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands
it flows save by using it year by year for the general good.
This
day already dawns. But a little while, and although, without incurring
the pity of their fellows, men may die sharers in great business
enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been
withdrawn, and is left chiefly at death for public uses, yet the man who
dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was his to
administer during life, will pass away “unwept, unhonored, and unsung,”
no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with
him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: “The man who dies
thus rich dies disgraced.”
Such, in my opinion, is the true
gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to
solve the problem of the rich and the poor, and to bring "Peace on
earth, among men goodwill."
