POOR BUT HAPPY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 286, 29 August 1931, Page 23

POOR BUT HAPPY

Millionaire Tells Why

Mr. C. Harold Smith, self-made millionaire and “carbon king” of U.S.A., is in London on holiday. He was born at Blackheath. Two years ago he offered a prize to anyone who could tell him the best way. to give away £2,000,000. He received a million begging letters, and then declared that giving money away was the hardest thing in the world. He has been threatened with death, blackmail, and violence. Like Mark Twain, he has read of his own death, slightly exaggerated, in, the newspapers. Yet he has discovered the secret of happiness! Listen to his philosophy of life. “I have discovered,” said Mr. Smith, millionaire, to a “Sunday Express” representative, “that it is possible for a man to be too happy. “A surfeit of happiness is the death of happiness, and to be happy a man must be contented and discontented. I have found that the happiest are those who enjoy the innocent and simple pleasures.

“I am a self-made man, and I am convinced that nobody tires of wealth and luxury more rapidly than the selfmade man. He wearies of the silly things on which many men accustomed to wealth spend their money. “Luxury appeals for a while, but it soon palls. I have found it so. 'Women revel in displaying their wealth with yachts, luxurious motor-ears driven by liveried chauffeurs, jewellery, and furs, “American husbands love this display, for their wives are a walking advertisement of their success. “For a king there' is no expectation, no advancement He cannot without risk ascend higher than his throne. Like a man standing at the North Pole, it does not matter which way he moves, it must be downwards. “When I asked how I could dispose of my surplus wealth I found on .every side greed and more greed. I have fol* lowed the Bible and cast my bread upon the waters in the hope that it would return to me after many days, but some greedy gudgeon swallowed my bread. I was only feeding fishes.”