The Spirit of America

by Henry Van Dyke

A man who is very rich merely by inheritance, who has no manifest share in the activities of the country, has quite a different place in their attention. They are entertained, or perhaps shocked, by his expenditures, but they regard him lightly.

It is the man who does things, and does them largely, in whom they take a serious interest. They are inclined, perhaps, to pardon him for things that ought not to be pardoned, because they feel so strongly the fascination of his potent will, his practical efficiency.

It is not the might of the dollar that impresses them, it is the might of the man who wins the dollar magnificently by the development of American industry.

This, I assure you, is the characteristic attitude of the typical American toward wealth. It does not confer a social status by itself in the United States any more than it does in England or in France. But it commands public attention by its relation to national will-power.

Of late there has come into this attention a new note of more searching inquiry, of sharper criticism, in regard to the use of great wealth.

Is it employed for generous and noble ends, for the building and endowment of hospitals, of public museums, libraries, and art galleries, for the support of schools and universities, for the education of the negro? Then the distributer is honoured.

Is it devoted even to some less popular purpose, like Egyptian excavations, or polar expeditions, or the endowment of some favourite study,—some object which the mass of the people do not quite understand, but which they vaguely recognize as having an ideal air? Then the donor is respected even by the people who wonder why he does that particular thing.

Is it merely hoarded, or used for selfish and extravagant luxury? Then the possessor is regarded with suspicion, with hostility, or with half-humorous contempt.

There is, in fact, as much difference in the comparative standing of multi-millionnaires in America as there is in the comparative standing of lawyers or politicians. Even in the same family, when a great fortune is divided, the heir who makes a good and fine use of the inheritance receives the tribute of affection and praise, while the heir who hoards it, or squanders it ignobly, receives only the tribute of notoriety,—which is quite a different thing. The power of discrimination has not been altogether blinded by the glitter of gold. The soul of the people in America accepts the law of the moral dividend which says Richesse oblige.

Here I might stop, were it not for the fact that still another factor is coming into the attitude of the American people toward great wealth, concentrated wealth. There is a growing apprehension that the will-power of one man may be so magnified and extended by the enormous accumulation of the results of his energy and skill as to interfere with the free exercise of the will-power of other men. There is a feeling that great trusts carry within themselves the temptation to industrial oppression, that the liberty of individual initiative may be threatened, that the private man may find himself in a kind of bondage to these immense and potent artificial personalities created by the law.