AMERICAN MILLIONAIRES

Evening Star, Issue 14497, 23 February 1911, Page 6

AMERICAN MILLIONAIRES

THE FEELING OF USTREST. A special correspondent of "The Times' eriys that in proportion as the American people grow richer they grow more discontented, and in revisiting the country one cannot fail to be struck with the extraordinary and feverish unrest. The fundamental fact is that many people have grown rich too quickly. Speaking specially of the Western States, ho sets : " In the decade from 1897 to 1907, and especially in the first few years of the new century," fortunes were made with great rapidity —in a few weeks, a few months, or in a year or two. They were, thfi result of the extraordinary rise in all values, and were to a large extent the fniifc of bold speculation or at least of spoculatiTe methods in the conduct of legitimate business. It was no longer a case of laborious effort and flow upbuilding; and the men who thns became suddenly rich were of a type different from that of the sucoeesful men of the preceding generation. It was as if chance, drew a, certain number of thousands of names almost at random out of a liat once in every six month* for a period of some five yearc, and said : "these men shall be millionaires next spring.' —Ertravagance of the Newly-made.— " The newly-rich, who thus came into their estates." without the long years of stern training in business economies, were conscious of no responsibilities, alid not unnaturally they began spending, and are spending to-day, with a lavishnees formerly undreamed oi; and this it is, more than anything else, wiiich has contributed to the general increase in extravagance and to the almost universal raising of the scale of living. Hut, v. hat i.< even more important, the attitude of the public towards them is different from their attitude towards the rich men of the older type. Without faying anything so absurd as that nil these newly-rich are unworthy of their fortune* or ajo using them in unworthy ways, one cannot help seeing that the example set by many of them is unedifying. Whereas in 'Great' Britain the unlovely rich are comparatively few, they are here constantly in evidence; and there is no doubt that ihe people resent them, fiieir manners, an/1 extravnpances, intensely. -■ Ameiica'f Problems New.— " It would bo idle to deny that the majority of the more eerious-minded Americans regard the present trend of things with grave forebodiiig. and one _ may oonstantiy Jnvr predj.-uons of the inevitablcness of some social cataclysm, which, may taku tin: '~~rm oi a financial panicworse than .my whi.h the country has known, or o: a terrific class war. Much of this despondency i.i but the usual nrifigivings of an elder" generation, common to all countries and all ages, contemplating the new-fanglnd and nighty ways of a younger. There presumably never was a time when the world was not goinjr to the dogs. It is certain, however, tqat the United States is now confronted with'problems which are new. and in the,solution of which the experience of other nations (even if the American people were ever inclined to profit by the experience of others) will be of little U6e. Unrest and discontent in a people down-trodden and poverty-stricken would not be much of a novelty; but here we have a people conspicuously restive and discontented while conspicuously well-to-do."