There are many corpses, many crimes, many broken hearts, haggard faces and bitter disappointments on that road.
The man with the "Good-money-making idea" struggles on with it over the bodies of suicides and of those who have fallen in despair.
At the bottom of the road the murderer plies his trade with knife or poison—to make money. And the murderer who has tried for MUCH money calls forth special interest and special privileges, special new trials, special newspaper headings.
At the top of the road to wealth, another, more intelligent class, work with equally remorseless energy. They murder no individual. But they rob entire classes of society.
They tax others to fatten their pockets—they add to the cost of food that children eat—they coin human life into cash—smoothly and nicely, using law-makers as tools. Envy and admiration are theirs—such admiration as the retail murderer can never earn. ——
The struggle for money is the struggle of THE WHOLE WORLD to-day.
And of the money-making movement, as of ALL WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENTS, there is a side that is good and necessary.
Divine wisdom guides the world, and the human race, working out its destiny in seeming blindness, is not allowed to wander from the track of actual progress.
The money-making mania is one phase of human advancement.
This is the age of industrial progress. Money is simply the means of perfecting industry. It is human labor condensed and put into compact, transferable shape.