But there is an even more important lesson for us Americans to learn, and this also is touched upon in what I have quoted above. It is not true, as Mr. Steevens says, that Americans feel that the one end of life is to get dollars; but the statement contains a very unpleasant element of truth. The hard materialism of greed is just as objectionable as the hard materialism of brutality, and the greed of the “haves” is just as objectionable as the greed of the “have-nots;” and no more so. The envious and sinister creature who declaims against a great corporation because he really desires himself to enjoy what in hard, selfish, brutal fashion the head of that great corporation enjoys, offers a spectacle which is both sad and repellent. The brutal arrogance and grasping greed of the one man are in reality the same thing as the bitter envy and hatred and grasping greed of the other. That kind of “have” and that kind of “have-not” stand on the same eminence of infamy. It is as important for the one as for the other to learn the lesson of the true relations of life. Of course, the first duty of any man is to pay his own way, to be able to earn his own livelihood, to support himself and his wife and his children and those dependent upon him. He must be able to give those for whom it is his duty to care, food and clothing, shelter, medicine, an education, a legitimate chance for reasonable and healthy amusements, and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and power which will fit them in their turn to do good work in the world. When once a man has reached this point, which of course will vary greatly under different conditions, then he has reached the point where other things become immensely more important than adding to his wealth. It is emphatically right, indeed I am tempted to say it is emphatically the first duty of each American, “to get dollars,” as Mr. Steevens contemptuously phrased it; for this is only another way of saying that it is his first duty to earn his own living. But it is not his only duty, by a great deal; and after the living has been earned, getting dollars should come far behind many other duties.