The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and ServiceHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and Service
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Conduct of life
This new spirit of sympathy and service it is that offers us help in
solving the problems of social unrest and disquietude. Events will not
let us forget that ours is an age of industrial discontent. Society is
full of warfare. Prophets of evil tidings foretell social revolution.
The professional agitators are abroad, sowing discord and nourishing
hatred and strife, and even the optimists sorrowfully confess the
antagonism between classes. There is an industrial class strong and
happy, both rich and poor; and there is an idle class weak and wicked
and miserable, among both rich and poor. Unfortunately, as has been
said, the wise of one class contemplate only the foolish of the other.
The industrious man of means is offended by the idle beggar, and
identifies all the poor with him, and the hard-working but poor workman
despises the licentious luxury of one rich man, and identifies all the
rich with him. But there are idle poor and idle rich and busy poor and
busy rich. "If the busy rich people watched and rebuked the idle rich
people, all would be well; and if the busy poor people watched and
rebuked the idle poor people all would be right. Many a beggar is as
lazy as if he had $10,000 a year, and many a man of large fortune is
busier than his errand boy."
Forgetting this, some poor look upon the rich as enemies and desire to
pillage their property, and some rich have only epithets for the poor.
Now, wise men know that there is no separation of rich industrious
classes and the poor industrious classes, for they differ only as do
two branches of one tree. This year one bough is full of bloom, and
the other bears only scantily, but next year the conditions will be
reversed. Wealth and poverty are like waves; what is now crest will
soon be trough. Such conditions demand forbearance and mutual
sympathy. Some men are born with little and some with large skill for
acquiring wealth, the two differing as the scythe that gathers a
handful of wheat differs from the reaper built for vast harvests and
carrying the sickle of success. For generations the ancestors back of
one man's father were thrifty and the ancestors back of his mother were
far-sighted, and the two columns met in him, and like two armies joined
forces for a vast campaign for wealth. Beside him is a brother, whose
thoughts and dreams go everywhither with the freedom of an eagle, but
who walks midst practical things with the eagle's halting gait. The
strong one was born, not for spoiling his weaker brother, but to guard
and guide and plan for him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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