There is a constant attraction of wealth for wealth. Poverty never attracted anything. If our children have money of their own that is a good reason to us why they should marry more money. We snarl angrily at the penniless youth, no matter how capable and intelligent, who dares cast his eyes on our daughter. We make it quite unambiguous that we have other plans for her--plans that usually include a steam yacht and a shooting box north of Inverness. There is nothing more vicious than the commonly expressed desire of parents in merely moderate circumstances to give their children what are ordinarily spoken of as "opportunities." "We wish our daughters to have every opportunity--the best opportunities," they say, meaning an equal chance with richer girls of qualifying themselves for attracting wealthy men and of placing themselves in their way. In reality opportunities for what?--of being utterly miserable for the rest of their lives unless they marry out of their own class. The desire to get ahead that is transmitted from the American business man to his daughter is the source of untold bitterness--for, though he himself may fail in his own struggle, he has nevertheless had the interest of the game; but she, an old maid, may linger miserably on, unwilling to share the domestic life of some young man more than her equal in every respect. There is a subtle freemasonry among those who have to do with money. Young men of family are given sinecures in banks and trust companies, and paid many times the salaries their services are worth. The inconspicuous lad who graduates from college the same year as one who comes from a socially prominent family will slave in a downtown office eight hours a day for a thousand dollars a year, while his classmate is bowing in the ladies at the Fifth Avenue Branch--from ten to three o'clock--at a salary of five thousand dollars. Why? Because he knows people who have money and in one way or another may be useful sometime to the president in a social way. The remuneration of those of the privileged class who do any work at all is on an entirely different basis from that of those who need it. The poor boy is kept on as a clerk, while the rich one is taken into the firm. The old adage says that "Kissing goes by favor"; and favors, financial and otherwise, are given only to those who can offer something in return. The tendency to concentrate power and wealth extends even to the outer rim of the circle. It is an intangible conspiracy to corner the good things and send the poor away empty. As I see it going on round me, it is a heartless business.