“This is the era of happy reunions and grand old age,” said Tom Vivian to a friend as they shook hands one evening. “Everywhere we go it is the same and all seem to have good health. Certainly a contented mind is more than half the cause.”
“You remember, Tom,” replied his friend, “that twenty years ago we could not take up a daily paper without reading about suicides and murders. In these days we rarely hear of such a thing, for instead of enduring misery, we are curing it by reasonable methods. Poverty which was in most cases the cause, is now only a memory. Do you know, Tom, for what you are admired the most of all?”
“Well, no, I can’t say that I do.”
“It has been the largeness of your mind in seeing the little things that went towards the building up of the system of this society. Take the apartments, houses, or hotels that are arranged so as to give those of small means as much comfort as those of large money interests. The houses having every provision made for comfort show clearly what a keen eye you had on the domestic situation.”
“You forget it was not always I who thought out all these improvements. It has oftener been the men and women who occupy them. They all wanted front rooms, so I called them together and with their aid and suggestions we adopted the method of constructing the buildings that way.”
“I consider,” continued his friend, “that one of the greatest improvements you have made is the one that enables us to keep our families together. For, after we secured a suite of rooms in the apartment hotel, my wife had no further care in the housekeeping for she objects to keeping help. Our children were young when we started and the kindergarten boarding apartment took them in. It was a great comfort to know that when we wanted them with us my wife, instead of being tired out, had plenty of time and felt fresh and rested so as to be able to enjoy them. Now that our family has been reared with less expense than we could have done in the old way, I have been able to secure sufficient shares to start every one of the children with a separate suite of rooms when they are married. As circumstances demanded we changed our apartments so as to be near each other. I have found it much more satisfactory than it would have been to have left any wealth I have accumulated or of insuring my life, leaving them thousands of dollars of which any one could have robbed them. What a comfort it is to be assured that they have a home and employment as long as they will need it and an allowance or pension for their remaining days.
“I met an old acquaintance the other day who hadn’t been able to see along the lines as we did years ago. Now he has no standing or titles in the country. You see he couldn’t grasp the situation and ideas. The old ways were good enough for him. I see your sister, Mrs. Shuman, has at last taken an apartment.”
“Yes,” replied Tom, “the Shumans were glad to come and had they done so before money depreciated as it necessarily had to do before the new order of things, they would have been better off. Why, he even blamed me for his losses. I didn’t quarrel with him on account of my sister, but I wrote in the next issue of our paper an article describing his position, then I saw that he got it. You know he was a very wealthy man at one time. Well, he came in one day and told my sister that he had made thirty thousand dollars through wheat advancing that he had bought on a margin. My sister said to him, ‘All that money on a margin and you never saw the wheat? Well, I think that was wonderful.’
“‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘you see, money makes money. When a man has it and the rest of the people have not, why it is easy as rolling off a log. A friend gave me a tip.’
“‘Lear, tell me how that sort of thing is done. How do these people know that wheat and all these commodities are going up? And, then, how can they control such an immense amount of money in their exchanges? How is it possible for people to make such a large amount of money just through a few cents profit on the bushel?’ she said.