The Passing of the Idle Rich

by Frederick Townsend Martin

People of my class, when they read a book, seldom write to the author and give him their impressions. In all human probability the compilers of this report do not know whether any one in the wealthy class of New York Society has read the book. I can assure them that it has been excellently read. One night, in a company of about a dozen, I mentioned it. All but two in the party had read extracts from it in the newspapers, two had read it in full for information, and one raised a laugh by saying that his secretary had tried in vain to buy it at four book stores.

This work, in my opinion, will bear a tremendous crop of fruit. We need facts, and we need them very badly. Frankly, we are afraid of such estimates as those contained in Mr. Robert Hunter’s “Poverty,” full as it is of vague, loose, and inaccurate statements, academic estimates in round millions, and glittering generalities of all sorts. We cannot find knowledge in the Socialist libraries, for we distrust the Socialist propaganda intensely. We must have sane, clear, dispassionate analysis of the situation, or we shall stumble blindly on as we are stumbling to-day, wasting our millions on foolish charities, debauching honest men and women by unnecessary gifts, pandering to laziness, and actually increasing in this land of industry the army of dependent paupers. I hope that the time will come when the Sage Foundation will be, as it were, a guiding light upon the sea of charity.

I can hardly pass from this subject without a word of praise for the work in behalf of the public health. The active, intelligent labour of such men as Professor Irving Fisher on the propagandist side, and Doctor Flexner and Doctor Stiles on the practical side, cannot be praised too highly. It is made possible by charity. Both Messrs. Rockefeller and Morgan, admittedly two of the greatest of our capitalists, have given millions to this work. Every year other uncounted millions pour into it from men and women in every city in the land. The work is spreading, growing wider, drawing into itself better medical talent, greater surgical skill, and deeper and deeper devotion on the part of its backers. Help of this sort does not debauch the masses, for it does not lessen the self-respect of its recipients. The hospitals that are springing up all over the land, built and supported by private capital, are milestones in the march of progress, and I would give full honour to the men that plant them.

In my own circle I know a good many people who think that they are charitable; and I know a few charitable people. It is a habit of my mind to ridicule the fads and fancies of my class; and I am sorry to be obliged to admit that, in the vast majority of cases with which I come personally in contact, the charity of my class is one of two things: it is either simply a fad, with little real genuine spirit of helpfulness behind it, or else it is, as it were, a sop to fear. A good many people seem to think that it is up to the rich to distribute largess to the poor, whether the poor want it or not. They ignore the economics of the matter, if indeed they know them. They have come to be afraid of the growing pressure from below, and they think that by indiscriminate charity they can lessen it.

So they give ships of corn to the masses. You remember, perhaps, that, in the later plutocracy of Rome, after the triumph of Sulla, it came to be a regular habit, when frenzied mobs of Romans or would-be Romans threatened death and ruin to the plutocrats, for various and sundry men to buy shiploads of corn in Egypt and distribute them gratis to the Roman plebs. It is true that, in all human probability, the plutocracy of Rome prolonged its life for more than half a century by just such means. If a mob of slaves is hungry, and you give them something to eat, they will go home and eat it; and, in the meantime, if you happen to be a Roman senator with plenty of money, your hired thugs may be able to find the leaders of the delayed revolution and put them beyond any possibility of raising further trouble.

You forget, when you try the process in America, that the plebs of America are not slaves, and that their leaders, of whom there is a host, are pretty nearly as well educated, are certainly as shrewd, and are probably as strong, legally, as you are. I fail to see how in this land charity of this sort can have any real effect. I am sorry to say that there is far too much of it. Let me pass on to the second weapon of defence. High society is becoming a rampant reformer. It will reform anything on a moment’s notice. When I read in the papers, and heard in the club, that a dozen women of great wealth were standing along Broadway handing bills and encouragement to the girl shirt-waist strikers of last winter, I was not a bit surprised. It is just what you might have expected. Nowadays I can hardly go to a reception or a ball without being buttonholed by somebody and led over into a corner to be told all about some wonderful new reform. It is perfectly amazing, this plague of reform, in its variety, in its volume, and in the intensity of earnestness with which it is pushed.

Not long ago a professor of economics in a great university, lecturing on “Social Reform,” openly advocated almost every imaginable variety of labour legislation. I do not believe he understood exactly what he was saying when he gave as a reason for such advocacy that the support of such legislation by the wealthy classes would tend to check the spread of certain vague but dangerous movements amongst the people, which he did not describe in detail, but which, to any intelligent man, simply meant the widespread Socialistic movement. I wonder, does that college professor really think that the enactment of all sorts of legislative reforms for labour would have any such tendency?

Give Lazarus crumbs, and he will crawl for them. Give him nothing, and he will demand bread, and then a steady job. After a time we will be visited by Mr. Lazarus, walking delegate of the labour union, requesting an eight-hour day and higher wages for his constituency. Dives will probably answer by building a church and a museum for Lazarus, and forcing Mrs. Lazarus to turn over her garbage to the public scavenger. After that you may be sure of the result. Every Lazarus in the land will demand to be made a co-partner in the business of the nation. That college professor may know quite a bit about economics, but he couldn’t hold a job for a week handling a bunch of half a dozen railroad navvies on a construction job.

It is the same old story. There are too many among the idle rich who jump at the first obvious conclusion. They see the strange phenomenon that I have noted as arising out of our industrial evolution, and they say to themselves; “The nation, indeed, faces a crisis. We are in danger of falling. The world should continue as it is. It is pleasant to be booted, spurred, and in the saddle. No oats for the horse, and we shall be thrown down. The mob must be appeased. Feed the hungry and we shall be saved. Cure Society of its most evident disorders and the public mind will forget the rest.”

So said the plutocrats of Rome. So argued the hangers-on of Louis of France. So Charles the First of England fell. You may find a good many other illustrations, if you like, in Athens, Italy, and Russia. I challenge any gentleman to instance a single case in history where petty reforms and petty charities thrown indiscriminately to the mob have ever established any permanent betterment of social conditions, or failed to be followed in the end by a terrific reckoning.