Before sketching the line of such an investigation, let me say that in logic and common sense there is no presumption against the wealthy person. Ever since civilization began and until yesterday it has been assumed that wealth was simply ability legitimately funded and transmitted. Even modern humanitarians, while dallying with the equation wealth = spoliation, have been unwilling wholly to relinquish the historic view of the case. I have always admired the courage with which Mr. Howells faced the situation in one of those charming essays for the Easy Chair of _Harper's_. Driving one night in a comfortable cab he was suddenly confronted by the long drawn out misery of the midnight bread line. For a moment the vision of these hungry fellow men overcame him. He felt guilty on his cushions, and possibly entertained some St. Martin-like project of dividing his swallowtail with the nearest unfortunate. Then common sense in the form of his companion came to his rescue. She remarked "Perhaps we are right and they are wrong." Why not? At any rate Mr. Howells was not permitted to condemn in a moment of compassion the career of thrift, industry and genius, that had led him from a printer's case to a premier position in American letters, or, more concretely, he received a domestic dispensation to cab it home in good conscience, though many were waiting in chilly discomfort for their gift of yesterday's bread. The why so and why not of this incident are my real subject. For Mr. Howells is merely a particularly conspicuous instance of the kind of prosperity I have in mind. We are all too much dazzled by the rare great fortunes. The newly rich have spectacular ways with them. By dint of frequently passing us in notorious circumstances, they give the impression of a throng. They are much in the papers, their steam yachts loom large on the waters, they divorce quickly and often, they buy the most egregious, old masters. By such more or less innocent ostentations, a handful stretches into a procession, much as a dozen sprightly supernumeraries will keep up an endless defile of Macduff's army on the tragic stage. Let us admit that some of the great wealth is more or less foolishly and harmfully spent; my subject is not bank accounts, but people; and very wealthy people constitute an almost negligible minority of the race. Their influence too is much less potent than is supposed. A slightly vulgarizing tendency proceeds from them, but in waves of decreasing intensity. Their vogue is chiefly a _succes de scandale_. Sensible people will gape at the spectacle without admiration, and even the reader of the society column in the sensational newspapers keeps more critical detachment than he is usually credited with. In any case neither the boisterous nor the shrinking multimillionaire has any representative standing. He is not what a poor person means by a rich person. Ask your laundress who is rich in your