Hoarders Of Wealth-How Explain Them?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 260, 3 November 1941, Page 6

Hoarders Of Wealth-How Explain Them?

" COR we brought nothing into this * world and it is certain we can carry nothing out." The words of St. Paul are often in our minds when we think of death, but they come to us with particular point when we contemplate the passing of the rich, and especially hoarders of wealth. It was David Harum, I think, who put into colloquial form the latter part of St. Paul's saying: "There ain't no pockets in a shroud." All the struggle and fret of money-making ends at the grave, and at the gate to the world's only complete equality the effort and its result tend to shrink to something like their true proportions.

By Cyrano

Many people must have recalled St. Paul's words when they read of the very strange case in Wellington, the aged woman who died alone with more than £26,000 in cash beside her, to say nothing of much wealth in other forms. We do not know enough to judge her life. She was not friendless; she had virtually promised to leave money to her relatives and she may have been very charitable. But we do know that she lived alone and apparently in quite humble style in one room; that she devoted all or most of her time and energy to the management of her estate, and that she hoarded money.

It is suggested that the size of the sum kept in the house, £26,500, might be accmmted for by recent sale of securities. She seems, however, to have been always distrustful of banks, and the fact remains that in her last days she did keep by her a quite respectable fortune in cash. Many of us are nervous about keeping even a few pounds in the house, but here was a woman prepared to risk thousands, though she had experienced one attempt at robbery. The Miser's Mind What are the reasons behind such preoccupation with money-making, the unwillingness to spend money to secure even moderate comfort and luxury, and the taking of such risks? To say it is love of money does not answer the question adequately. Probably in every case a special cause or causes could be found if we could probe deeply enough into personal history. The miser loves money for his own sake. Unlike so many other men, he doesn't value it for the enjoyment or power it gives him. He gloats over its actual possession. In the old days he hoarded his gold, and the dramatist liked to depict him taking out the coins and running them through his fingers. Going on the gold standard deprives the dramatist and the actor of this big moment; you can't mske so effective a scene with bank notes.

But the miser still feels that his money is there beside him. He has laid up his treasure on earth in such a form that he can touch it. But why did he grow like this? What twisted his sense of values? Was it poverty in youth? Did the struggle to lay the foundations of his wealth warp his mind? A great deal of the meanness of some rich men and women can be attributed to such experiences. They had to scrape so hard to get the first few hundred pounds that never afterwards were they able to spend generously. Probably this is the heaviest price the money-maker has to pay for success. Distrust Of Banks

It is a great mistake to think that the actual making of money is the sole satisfaction to be obtained from the pursuit of wealth. Men and women find in this business an outlet for their energy and capacity. A turn in their lives might easily direct this energy and capacity into other channels. It sometimes happens that they lose a fortune cheerfully and immediately set about making another. The occupation, "the game," means more to them than the result. We may take it that this Wellington wom«n enjoyed her keen pursuit of business. She collected her own rents and fought her own cases in the Courts. Perhaps it never occurred to her that she could get an;/ satisfaction out of spending her money; the making and guarding of it were quite sufficient.

As for her distrust of banks, that is still to be found here and there. The vast majority of mankind do not use banks, and even in communities like our own, where banking has been a general custom for generations, there are still nest-eggs in stockings and under mattresses. It is the result of an old, deep-rooted distrust, and of fear. The miser in Arnold Bennett's "Riceyman Steps," showing his hoard to his wife, said if things came to the worst, as they certainly would, his bank notes would be worth nothing, "but I'll tell you one thing that Communism and Socialism and murder and so on won't spoil, and it'll always be good value" and he took out his gold. Sometimes special circumstances produce this frame of mind. Many years ago a young man and his wife took up a bush section in a very isolated part of New Zealand, access to which was not only rough, but actually dangerous. The husband died, and the wife, with several children to keep, carried on the farm, for the most part single-handed. Years passed, settlement flowed into her district, and her lot became easier. When misfortune compelled her to leave, she took out with her the savings of a lifetime, some two thousand pounds tied up in a sheet. One can understand hoarding in such circumstances; it is much more difficult to understand when there is a bank round the corner. And the irony of it! This Wellington woman no doubt prided herself on her business ability, but by keeping £26,500 in the house she was losing interest at the rate of about £1000 a year. A Millionaire's Complex

Women who devote themselves so exclusively and successfully to business may be influenced by special complexes. The biographers of Hetty Green, the richest American woman of her time, and the match of any man in a business world that gave no quarter, say that "the idea that women were constitutionally lacking in the sense to handle money was one with which Hetty was at war all her life. Her poor mother had never been permitted to sign a cheque or make a will." They think that in her mother's incompetency lay the root of Hetty's "fanatical reluctance to spend money." Hetty left 67,000.000 dollars (this was the official figure, but other estiput her fortune at over 100,000.000 yet she took "weary rides in fllthv dav coachPs" instead of travelling in Pullmans, and when she lay dying the nurses attending her had to be asked to take oft their uniforms and appear as ordinary and cheaper servants. Hetty Green was not far from being certifiable. There is a streak of madness in many people who make money their god—perhaps in