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Show THE MENACE OF ENORMOUS FORTUNES Writers and speakers arc discussing a good deal the question of enormous individual fortunes, and the necessity for limiting them. They arc regarded re-garded as the greatest menace to our institutions, because, by their rapid growth they are absorbing all the wealth of the country into a few bands, thus giving the owners of them a power which will soon prove greater than that of jhe government il- ! self. President Roosevelt started the ball rolling I in a recent utterance, as follows: "It is important to this people to grapple with j the problem of enorniou- fortunes f f(Vi j that we shall ultimately have to consider the'adop- I tion of some such scheme as that: of the progressive I inheritance tax on all fortunes beyond a certain amount, either given in life or divided or bequeathed be-queathed upon death to any individual a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual." One United States senator termed this "rank socialism." Inasmuch as such a law would have i to pass the United States senate, sometimes called the "Millionaire's Club," it is liable to have hard sledding. On general principles, such a law would be a just measure. It would not take anything from n man who had acquired it. He could enjoy it as long as he lived, and then upon his death, his heirs would get more than they could possibly use, and -the balance be distributed. But is such a law necessary? Do enormous individual in-dividual fortunes constitute a menace to the welfare wel-fare of the nation? Fortunes which come under this head have been accumulated within the pitsV forty years, and most of them within the last twenty years. Men who accumulate them are invariably in-variably poor at the beginning, and get to the top by great ability and force of character. The methods they employ are frequently unscrupulous, and they acquire their wealth at the expense of -morality and honesty. About the time they have accumulated ac-cumulated the vast fortune, however, they are old men and death is not far off. Then comes the question of keeping the swollen fortune intact. Thft descendants of these able men are invariably invaria-bly uili'itted for business. In fact, their sons are brought up in such a way that they never acquire business ability. They arc surrounded by every luxury, spend much of their ' time in Europe, and in yachting and automobiling. They associate with thoso who regard business life as a stain, and proceed pro-ceed to purchase a long line of ancestors who never engaged in business. One such scion recently stated, regretfully, "I am the first of my line. My father was in trade, you know." Following the same trend, the daughters marry European titles, in order to become noble as well as rich. Various devices have been adopted in European countries to keep fortunes intact. One is the law of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son inherits all. Another is the entailing of estates, putting it beyond the power of heirs to dispose of real estate, so that it will remain intact in the family for centuries. cen-turies. Parents of nobility also assist in this, because be-cause when a nobleman becomes penniless, there is always some wealthy tradesman's daughter glad to marry him. so as to become "My Lady." Notwithstanding Notwith-standing all of these aids of the law, fortunes in Europe become scattered, and today the penniless nobleman is more numerous than the wealthy one. In this country there are no such things as primogeniture, primo-geniture, entailment or nobility. The irresistible tendency is toward distribution. Even if a wealthy man should leave all of his fortune to one person, the will would be broken. Let the son of a wealthy man become penniless, and he is merely "Mr. Smith," and is very unattractive Nto a wealthy heiress. There is a natural law of distribution which works irresistibly in such cases. No device yet found has prevented it. Wealth distributes itself just, as the sap distributes itself in a tree. Starting Start-ing in the trunk, it radiates into the branches, the twigs and he leaves, until finally it is distributed into a million portions. The original accumulator of the wealth, as the trunk of the tree, might become be-come a dangerous weapon; but the leaf is entirely harmless. Even if the heirs to a swollen fortune arc not spendthrifts, the money becomes distributed. distribut-ed. A Wealthy . man leaves, say, four children ; in the third generation, at the same ratio, .the fortune i .sdivided into sixty-four parts, and in the next generation into two hundred and fifty-six parts, hen one'ldies without children, and his fortune goes to collateral heirs, it is at once divided into probably a mndred or a thousand parts. How ha; this worked out in our own country ? Vhat has ecome pf the enormous fortunes of Stanford, I opkins, Flood and Huntington ? The A anderbilt fortune has been split into a dozen parts, altho igh only one generation old. Russell Sage recent y died, leaving fifty' millions of practically prac-tically cash assets to his widow. She is an old woman,, who cannot long survive, and at whose death this fi rtune is sure to be divided into many parts. Geor re Gould is a notable exception to the nile. He h is taken up railroading where his father left o f, and is one of the giants in the fi- i i nancial world. The Astor fortune has been divided di-vided into many parts, although several of the heirs are enormously wealthy. But are they dan gerous? They are notoriously incompetent, and the mention of the fact that John Jacob accumulated accumu-lated the fortune makes them shudder. Such people peo-ple cannot be considered dangerous. Instead of lions, they are just little lambs in the flock, the only differt-ni-e being that ihey have more wool on than the others. Jf the able men who accumulate vast fortunes could only life for a couple of hundred years, they with their vast money would indeed be dangerous to the nation. They would stifle competition, and go on accumulating until they had all the wealth j ot he country centered in a comparatively fe- j har.ds. To accomplish this result, they devised and j developed a much better method than primogeni- ture. entailment or nobility, viz: corporation. A i corporation never dies. It j-oes on from generation j to generation, managed by the ablest men in the j country, stifling competition, and absorbing j wealth like an enormous sponge. Unlike the indi-l indi-l vidua, where the giant of one generation is th pigmy of the next, the corporation is a succession ! ! of giants, standing on each others' .shoulders, each ! seeing further and directing better than his pre- i decessor. Huntington and Stanford were the j giants of the Pacific railroads. On their shoul- j ders stands Harriman, directing forces a dozen times greater, and when he passe on another ' giant will be ready to rake up the work where he leaves off. Corporations are a necessity. They develop resources which otherwise must remain undeveloped, un-developed, increasing the total wealth of the country coun-try and giving employment to many millions who would otherwise be unemployed. The development of tlie copper properties at Bingham is a notable example of this. At the same time, whatever men- j ace there is to our institutions, through the ng- ! grandizement of great wealth, .stifling competition, and evenually causing a bloody revolution, comes from that source, and not from individuals. j ; I |