we have come to the end of the story. the days of the idle rich in america are as a tale that is told. to-morrow in this land there will be one of two things: either an evolution or a revolution. either by one of those characteristically swift and marvellous changes for which the history of our race is noted, the class which i represent will again be merged into and assimilated by the body of the nation, as it was half a century ago, or we shall stand face to face with the forces of anarchy, socialism, trade unionism, and a hundred other cults that either do represent or claim to represent the spirit of this mighty people, and we shall reënact in this land some of the most terrible tragedies of history.
i do not believe a middle course is possible. i know, of course, that the rank and file of the class i represent are blind and careless. i know that many of them, if they read this book, will lay it aside with a smile, calling it hysterical, calling it untrue. wealth never yet in history has recognized its true position in the world, and i suppose it never will. yet i am bound to say the things i think, and i can only trust that some few at least will be impelled to study facts and come before the tribunal of public opinion within the next few years armed and prepared for their own vindication.
i have written in vain if i have not made it clear that while the class of the wealthy has been increasing steadily during the past five years, faster than it ever increased in a similar period before, that growth in numbers has been accompanied also by an ever-increasing knowledge on the part of the wiser heads in the social world, by a serious, sober, and careful analysis of the real conditions among the wealthy themselves, and by a genuine adaptation of the minds of the wealthy to these new conditions as they come home to us. this is the one hope of american society. it is not conclusive, but at least it points the way toward the future of america.
i do not want to be considered an alarmist or to cry panic from the house tops. yet, in the light of facts, and in the face of the terrific changes that must take place within the next decade in our social and business structure, i cannot see how the business world of america can long escape a reckoning that has for years been overdue. there has to be in this country an adjustment that will shake the financial and business world to its foundations. it is possible, though not probable, that the necessary social changes of the next decade could be accomplished without a cataclysm; but with the concurrent business changes, the necessary shifting of the bases of our industrial system, the inevitable scaling down of the extravagance to which the nation as a whole has become accustomed, it is, i should say, utterly impossible that we can go through without an industrial disturbance that will strike far deeper than any we have known since 1893.
for the poison of gold has debauched and corrupted american society, it has brought within our gates new armies of parasites, it has led to a degree of ostentation and of luxury, and even of vice and profligacy, comparable with that of the roman empire under heliogabalus. i said in a former chapter that the middle class in america has almost if not quite lost its power. one of the most vital reasons for this fact is that much of that middle class has become confused with the lower fringes of the wealthy class, has learned to ape its habits and its luxuries, has come to live with ostentation and display, and has given up its traditional habits of frugality and thrift to waste its substance on a riotous form of living that is, as it were, but a faint and unworthy imitation of the habits of life of the wealthy.
in the process of adjustment that is unavoidable this drunkenness must pass. the great professional class, which in all ages has produced so many thinkers, writers, and makers of a nation’s history, must come back into its own; it must learn again the lesson of thrift and providence which it has learned so well in france and germany, and which, forty years ago, were the most striking features of its character here in this land. if, as is true, the class i represent has very much to learn, i take it to be equally true that every other class in the land also has its lessons to learn. the process of learning is not to be an easy one. it may be that we as a nation will be tried in the fiery furnace of adversity, immersed in the gloomy depths of business depression, and crushed beneath a load of debt and repudiation before we have learned the first small principles upon which the newer order of things in america must be founded.
it is not my business, however, to talk249 to the people of america at large. i am addressing this book to society, to the men and women whom i know, to the boys and girls who are to take our places in the social world as years go by. to them, in all sincerity, i am preaching a sermon of warning. i am calling them to gird themselves for battle—a battle the like of which has never been fought in this land before—a battle for life.
my appeal, if it were merely an appeal to save ourselves, would be sordid indeed. for it is ours to think of saving others. the bugle of the assured destiny of our race should quicken us to the service of a great and holy cause. the call is the call of the future, and the cause is the cause of humanity. i covet for you, my friends and members of my class, a higher destiny than the mere panic-stricken flight to safety. i250 am aware not only of your views, but of your virtues. never before has there been such an opportunity for real service to mankind. you have the means, you have the power, you have the position, you have all, save only the will. i feel confident that if you give the matter study, and do not throw away this book as mere idle talk, the will to serve will come to you.
i know that the great bulk of society can be reconstructed only by one agency, and that is death. to-day, in the south, there linger here and there many old men and women who never yet have ceased to call down curses from heaven upon the head and memory of lincoln. it is perfectly self-evident that in this other cause of which i write, and that has come to be so near to me, the army of the unreconstructed must remain for many years tremendous. particularly is this true of the newer recruits within the golden gates of the city of wealth. you may note that we are still enjoying the company of the first generation of the captains of industry. the second generation marches swiftly upon us. it will not be satisfied, it will not be sated, until it has reached the mellowness of age. it will follow the will-of-the-wisp of society to the bitter end. it is more stubborn, i think, than even that ancient culture of boston and philadelphia. most certainly it is much more offensive to the public at large. in fact, more than any other specific subdivision of the army of wealth, it flaunts its glaring banners in the faces of the people.
i often think, as i watch the young men and women of my class trying to enjoy themselves, what a terrible problem we have bequeathed to them. i am no longer young; even my friends call me middle aged. at any rate, i have reached a stage in life where i can stop and weigh the facts, and come to a conclusion unbiased by the mere joy of living. therefore i am moved to pity as i watch the very young of my class at play. for i am positively certain that three out of four of them will face, in the fulness of their lives, many bitter and heart-searching problems. already the shadow of impending events falls heavily upon them. many of them, even in their very tender youth, have learned that they belong to a hated class. how different is their lot from mine! for i, as a boy, was taught to consider myself the heir of all the ages. i was taught that i belonged to a class loved and respected for its virtues, envied and looked up to for its opportunities. i was taught that the women of my class were models and examplars to all the world. i was taught that the men were the uncrowned kings of america, leaders of thought, leaders of action, masters of destiny, masters of business.
to-day, in new york, the girls of our class cannot read the newspapers without learning the fearful lesson that their fathers are despised by the people and their mothers are suspected by the women of the nation. ridicule, slander, sarcasm, and obloquy are poured upon us day by day. i sometimes wonder how the class can survive it. it is a fearful thing for a young girl to be brought up to womanhood in an atmosphere like this. it must breed either careless, heartless indifference, or a spirit of discontent.254 i hope it is the latter, but, alas! i very much fear it is more likely to be the former.
what are we going to do about it? i wish i could answer the question in one great, sweeping generality. unfortunately, i do not believe it can be answered so. i know that the author of “the trust: its book” has found an answer in a utopian partnership between capital and labour. i know that mr. carnegie has found the answer in coöperation. i know that such skilful writers as lloyd and wells have solved the riddle by socialism. i know that many thousands of the hardest thinking, hardest working citizens of this country are pledged already to the doctrine of government ownership of the sources of wealth. i know that danton and robespierre thought that they had found it255 when they set up the guillotine in paris. i know that the terrorists of russia have worked out their own solution. i know that the rockefeller foundation, the sage foundation, and a thousand other mighty charities are intended as an answer. i know that samuel gompers and john mitchell think that the extension of trade unionism will solve it. above all, i know that many of the seasoned leaders of the social world believe that it will swiftly solve itself. i believe that mr. morgan and his wonderful group of associates thought they had taken a long step toward the solution when they threw the entire money power of the united states into the fight against panic in 1907. they believed that they had earned from the people of this country undying admiration, endless devotion, and an end of all warfare, because they thought they had stepped between panic and its victims.
yet i cannot believe that any one of these solutions is the right one. no permanent change in the social structure of this nation can be accomplished except by a revolution or by the process of evolution, at which i have vaguely hinted here and there throughout this book.
education must go on. the professional reformer, the sycophant who bows before us, the parasite who eats our bread and dispenses the wisdom of the ages in return, harp upon this theme. only, to their mind, education means simply the training of the lower classes into a traditional habit of mind that will permit the continuance of the present conditions. to me education has no such meaning. more than any other class in the united states, we, the rich, need it. we must get it.
we must learn the truth about ourselves, our strength, our weakness, our true position in the world. we must learn the truth about our nation, our political institutions, our laws, our misuse of special privilege, our brigandage of the people’s rights at washington and at every state capital in the land. we must learn the truth about the people, their rights, their wrongs, their power, and their weakness.
and, as we learn, we must act. we must ourselves eradicate the worst of our faults. we must ourselves condemn to death the idle rich. we must see to it that as our young men and women grow to maturity they learn to condemn and to scorn the sort of ostentatious display, the miserable vices, the degenerate luxuries, if we are to save ourselves and the world that we inherited, go back to the traditions of our fathers. we must reestablish in the social world of america the spartan principles that marked that world in the days of lincoln.
the age of arrogance is ended. that is a hard lesson. the idle rich of america, with the bitter voice of poverty and the deep tones of science alike ringing in their ears challenges of their existence as a class, may well tremble at the tones of that other voice which, though seeming silent, yet speaks aloud. the nation’s greatest builder, lincoln, built as unto liberty. that temple from which he drove the idle driver of slaves, for these long years dedicated to the uses of mammon, yet looms large in the visions of the disinherited.
above all else that we may do on the positive side there remains the privilege of putting our study to practical work in the amelioration of the conditions that exist and the prevention of the recurrence of the phenomena that gave us these conditions. as a class we are, to-day, obstructionists. it is our class conservatism, you may say, that impels us to look with suspicion upon the rising of the people against, for instance, such a political debauch as has ruled rhode island for so long. we, on the contrary, should stand in the front ranks of such a battle as that. first of all, we, the people of this country, should detect political corruption, we should recognize the symptoms of the palsying touch of gold—and we should stand out before the world as the sworn champions of justice, equality, and honour.
for i do not believe that the march of progress in this land is to be turned backward. i cannot believe that the nation as a nation is to sink into the depths as england sank in the middle of the eighteenth century. i take it for granted that the wiping out of the idle rich is to be one of the first steps in a programme of national advancement, greater, more splendid, and far more universal than any other period of advancement and progress in the history of the nation. the idle rich are an obstacle in the way; therefore they must be eliminated or destroyed. whether we, all the rich, as a class, are to share with them in that destruction depends upon whether or not we too set ourselves up as an obstacle in the path of the nation’s development.
as i have said, i cannot name a panacea, or dispose in a few rounded paragraphs of the problems that confront us. personally i am convinced that many measures to which my class is to-day unalterably opposed will within the next few years take their places as laws upon our statute books. i am persuaded that sooner or later the solid opposition of the eastern states to a graduated income tax will be broken down. i fully expect to see before i die the inauguration of inheritance taxes and legacy taxes in this country that will tend at least to level in the course of time the tremendous discrepancies that have grown up under our present system of taxation.
i do not expect to see a general triumph of pure socialism. it may be that ultimately we shall experiment with government262 ownership of railroads and public utilities, but i should look forward with terror to any such experiment. it may be that in the remedying of the defects of our civilization we as a nation shall be impelled into excesses of this sort for at least a brief period of our history. if it be so, the nation will be quick to remedy its mistakes when once it has tried them out and found them wanting.
i do not expect to see the great industrial consolidations destroyed. i do expect to see in the very near future a period in which the wholesale exploitation of the raw materials of wealth—both labour and the products with which it works—will be curtailed. i do expect to see a very decided limitation placed upon the growth of tremendous industrial fortunes.
granting such limitation, and granting patience upon the part of the people, i know that many of our defects will cure themselves. it is an old saying in this land that it is but three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves. that phrase is no mere generalization. it is based upon scientific data. twenty years ago, in the old city of worcester, massachusetts, mr. joseph h. walker carried on an investigation along this line. he discovered that out of seventy-five manufacturers in that city in 1850 only thirty died or retired with property; while of the sons of these manufacturers only six, in 1890, held any property or had died in the meantime in possession of such. in 1878 there were one hundred and seventy-six men engaged in the ten leading manufacturing trades of that city, and of these only fifteen had inherited the trade that they were carrying on.
give us time and we shall solve all the problems of the age. the makers of america to-day are almost without exception men who have made themselves. that is an american tradition that we shall carry on throughout the ages. i cannot help but hope, even against the evidence of my own eyes and ears, that this plutocracy which to-day threatens the very life of the nation can be passed into american history without an epoch-marking revolution. only, we of the wealthy class have many things to learn, and we must learn them faithfully, sitting at the feet of the historians.
