The Passing of the Idle RichMartin, Frederick Townsend
History
The Passing of the Idle Rich
Martin, Frederick Townsend
Rich people -- United States; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918; Wealth -- United States
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 government 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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