The Reign of Gilt

by David Graham Phillips

It is reasonable, and not unkind, to assume that the time will come when we shall no longer have John D. Rockefeller with us. He may not die; as a vindication and a reward he may be honored with the unique distinction of Enoch and Elijah. But, whether by the vulgar route or in fiery chariot with angel escort, go he will, and his son will reign in his stead. The word reign is here used in the metaphoric sense in which it is almost always used now-a-days. For, the son of Rockefeller will not be free literally to reign. He will be hedged about with a thousand and one restraints. His acts will be the result not of his own intellect and will, but of his training, his tradition, his environment. He will be little of the autocrat, a great deal of the agent and servant. But, suppose that he would be really free, really self-owned, really capable of the mastership of his vast inheritance, instead of its slave, doing its bidding, acting always as a son of John D. Rockefeller and a member of the class multi-millionaire. Suppose this possible. What could he do with his nearly a thousand millions, for the most part so massed that they control many of the great vital industries of the country? Imbued with a deep sense of trusteeship to humanity instead of to the quaint Rockefeller god, and endowed with the intelligence to act upon that sense, what could he do to make the world the better for his sojourn in it? What would be his opportunities?

Of course, in the reality his opportunities will be small indeed. His limitations, through heredity, education and environment, are too narrow. But under our fanciful, even fantastic, “if,” there must be surely some way for a rich man to serve his fellow-men and demonstrate high qualities of mind and heart other than by these commonplace, more or less “cheap and nasty” schemes of so-called philanthropy. To all men in the past, and to the small man still—that is, to any man incapable of grasping the splendid and lofty idealism of Democracy—there could be nothing more captivating than playing the rôle of my Lord Bountiful. Not merely the paying of one’s just debts, not merely the doing of the commands of one’s own self-respect, but graciously condescending to part with one’s wealth for the gratification of one’s vanity and for the development of deference and humility in the recipients of the bounty. Philanthropy as it is practiced is more often than not a vice both in its origin and in its results. So, we will not make our imaginary young Rockefeller a philanthropist. We will not subject him to the temptation to make of himself a supercilious Pharisee and to make of others paupers and parasites and courtiers.

He is free; he is young; he is fearless. He is absolute master of his colossal inheritance. He looks up at the vast structure his father built. He reads upon it the motto his father placed there—“I am a clamorer for dividends.” His face sobers as he reads, and out of his mind go his half-formed projects to endow missions and colleges and hospitals and libraries. “Perhaps I have not so much to give as I thought,” he says to himself. “I must first see. What are the sources of my income? Am I stealing from anybody? Should I be giving away that which is not rightfully mine to give?”

And as a preliminary move he tears down the offensive “I am a clamorer for dividends,” and puts in its stead “I am a clamorer for justice.”

“Let us first be just,” he says. “Perhaps we shall not be able to be generous. Perhaps we shall even, hat in hand, and upon our knees, be compelled to crave the generous forgiveness of our fellow-men.” All this time he has been standing at the rear or business end of the paternal structure. He now goes round to the front or philanthropic side of it. He closes the doors there with a sign, “Philanthropy suspended during the taking of the inventory.”

And so we find our ideal young Rockefeller, his ears shut against the importunities of paupers and panderers and parasites, plunging deep and resolutely into the details of business—of the several vast enterprises which he, by inheritance, owns or controls. And soon all his father’s old friends, with the approval of all the leading men in finance and industry, are discussing whether a commission ought not to be obtained, and cannot be obtained, to inquire into the sanity of the young man. Not dividends, but honesty and justice! Why, the young fellow’s brain is turned! Denouncing business methods approved by the best lawyers at the bar, sanctified by the use of the greatest captains of industry? Insisting that commodities should be sold at only a fair profit over and above the cost of production? Dismissing men skilled in legal and business chicane? Insisting that no man in his employ shall have less than a decent living wage? Calling for the reorganization of great properties, not to increase but to decrease the bonds and stocks on whose interest and dividends a hundred of our best people are able to lead lives of elegant leisure and look down with amused pity on those who have to toil? There is no escape from the conclusion that the young man is mad, mad as a hatter, mad as a March hare.

If he had established soup kitchens to tempt the hard-working to knock off and join the army of lusty beggars, if he had given millions to enable missionaries to live at ease while they gratified their abnormal passion for meddling in other people’s business, if he had subsidized faculties to teach only “safe and sane” doctrines, if he had set aside vast corruption funds for debauching legislatures to suffer the people to be despoiled, if he had poured rivers of water into the stocks and bonds of his enterprises, had cut down wages and raised prices, if he had built himself half a dozen palaces, and conducted himself like a monkey that has been given a red cap and a pink jacket—why, that would have been sane, eminently sane. But honesty and justice! And in his own affairs! A real, practical application! Hear the shouts of derisive laughter. See the winks, the tongues in derisive cheeks. “The man’s mad! The man’s mad!” cries a generation tainted with the coarse ideals of riches, show and condescension.

But let us suppose that he is not strait-jacketed by his friends nor daunted by the hoots of the crowd. Let us suppose that he remains at large and has his way. And then, let us look at his first great “philanthropy.”

At first glance there seems nothing to look at, no important change. The same old machinery of these several huge Rockefeller industries of manufacture, trade and transportation seems to be moving on in much the same old way. The only obvious change is in the fortune and the income of the young iconoclast and his fellow-stockholders. There is seen an enormous shrinkage—enough to have endowed hundreds of colleges, enough to have made millions of paupers. The difference between the old order and the new is chiefly in moral tone. An honest man and a criminal go through precisely the same routine each day—dressing, eating, talking, sleeping. The abysmal difference between the two is invisible to human eyes.

Nor does the example of the new order seem to amount to much. Such doings are too expensive. Charity, donations, subscriptions, cost far less, do not interfere with dividends and interest, and bring returns in public applause. Why be honest and just when nobody else is—when nobody appreciates it—when the very victims of the system of dishonesty and injustice have less respect for you? Why refrain from “respectable” robbery when indulging in it gives power and prestige?