| Show THE MEASURE OF WEALTH The four great combines In this country coun-try up to date are the Standard Oil combine the atccl combine the smelting smelt-ing combine and the two or three rqll road combines Each icpnscnis k tens of millions oC dollars and contemplating the mighty aggregates the ordinary man says to himself Vho was It that talked about wanting the carh The Standard Oil Is not of Itself a menace to the people It Is only the way itS tremendous dividends arc used As for the steel and railroad combines cdo not entertain the fear that many people peo-ple do that they will seek to oppress the people for the reason that after all they arc by their very nature dependent depend-ent upon the pcople and they arc so Immense In their operations and requirements re-quirements that thcy need the direct patronage of all the people In order to secure iho ncjdcd interest on their capital cap-ital But the smelling trust can It It pleases about smash mining In the Intermountain In-termountain States and send abroad for Its supplied s of ores It Is the habit of men to strain their energies for the attainment of great rc sulu When those lesults come It they are In a Inc of progress to the race qr If they add new pleasures 01 new comfort I com-fort to mankind theme Is an cxqus tc Joy InthC attainment But after all what pleasure coircs to a man that ho receives some Ollrt I > ns annualy I for dividends div-idends In the oil business lie cannot cat pr wear very much of that money j the possession of It Is a mightycare to him He cunnot enjoy even the misers pu5lon for counting for the snips are too large HIs brain Is con slantlv saturated with It his waklnir hours aro dovoletl to the l business and his lrcarns are filed with It Samuel J Tjlden once entertained nt dinner a delegation that went on to nominate I I I him for President At the time he was I supposesl to be worth 120 0000 The conversation turned upon wealth and tlis acquirement of It l whereupon Mr Tlldcn said When a man acquires more than 200000 then his money be j I i comes a burcicn to him The Inter st on I 5200 030 under the laws of New York Is I fl 1000 per annum hen a man 1ms hla home and Is gut of debt he cannot spend 5HOOO per annum In a way Loa I Lo-a dto his comforts lie can throw I much more than that away but there I Is not a real comfort that he needs I and no reasonable luxury that he cannot can-not purchase for U000 per annum That Is nQt quite as true now ss when Mr Tlldcn wastalklng but It Is substantially sub-stantially true And he was nlklng New York city and was making estimates I I esti-mates from New York city prices And I he was one of the hardheaded graspIng < 1 grasp-Ing class of men So the rule may be called established that after a man acquires property enough to meet nl ha icas nable wants ho Is Just as rich as ho ever can be and though he may still struggle on the more ho gains the morr care it will bo to him TJicVR swnp longer the gratification grat-ification of striving to be rich for the utmost that the ordinary mortal may hopo for does not approximate tho modern rich mens wealth The big combines arc good In one way at least They will tend to t depersonalize deperson-alize the vain rich man Astor and GJrurd stood out alone In their day tho best of them can only hope now tob called one of the coal syndicate or one of the stool syndicate syndi-cate or some olhcr syndicate Then after I all the whole structure Of wealth vMla I on the good will and patronage of the people and the more a man has the moro aro the calls upon him H WAS a wise man who prayed for neither poverty nor riches but I there IR I no account of how much he I thought would be necessary before he j would begin to call himself rich I |
