AMERICA'S IDLE RICH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14925, 24 February 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

AMERICA'S IDLE RICH.

A scientific- investigation of the '"idle rich" was. suggested by Dr. Henry Walcott Farnam, professor of economics at • Yale University, in an address which lie delivered. before the American -Association for the Advancement of Science at Washington. He declared thai; the monkey dinners, clog funerals, all night . snake dances, and other favourite amusements of American-society are symptoms of serious social decay. " It is a matter of common observation/' lie said. " that wealthy families in our country often contain parasitic members who derive large incomes from society without rendering any economic or public service in return. These facts should be examined historically and statistically to enable us to judge tiie effect of prosperity on the human mind. ''These . parasitic members of the socalled leisured dosses should be peculiarly useful specimens for economic study in our country, because they are not under the •social "pressure of the feudal system, inherited in Europe's older countries from the time when wealth meant land ownership, which in linn involved public duties. Man v. of this class walk our streets, elo- i quent, but unconscious arguments for ; socialism, and terrible examples for the j moralist, but comparatively neglected by ; the economist, the sociologist, and the , statistician. j . "If cows had power to choose a life of.: celibacy we would find many a pedigreed j Guernsey chewing the end in idleness and ■ yielding no milk, just as we often find the sons of distinguished parents displaying real ability when put to academic tests, j vet doing nothing to make their lives useful or distinguished for lack.of. a proper incentive. I " We should gather budgets of club men, and statistics of voluntary idleness, and study. social conditions in the homes of the wealthy."