HOW IT FEELS TO BE RICH.

Western Star, Issue 1300, 27 March 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW IT FEELS TO BE RICH.

Does wealth bring happiness ? This question was recently put to a number of prominent American millionaires—men who have known both poverty and riches, and, having been the architects of their own foi tunes, have in a practical way tested the matter for themselves. Andrew Carnegie said : —" Wealth can only bring happiness in the sense that it brings us greater opportunities of making others happy. When wo have exhausted every other so-called pleasure, that i f bringing the look of joyful surprise to the eyes and the words of grateful happiuess to the lips of others remains perennial. The ways in which a wealthy man can produce such gratifying results are numerous and self-evident. Wealth will enable it's possessor to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, endow free institutions of learning, establish free libraries, found hospitals, and do countless other good works. It will enable him to entertain his friends, and amid.pleasurable surroundings help them to the enjoyment of some happy hours.

John D. Rockefeller, the standard oil magnate, whose wealth is estimated at upwards of 100,000,000 dollars, replied " Wealth docs not bring happiness, for many reasons, One of these is that no man think himself wealthy. No man can over be so rich that there will not be others wealthier than he~ is, and the knowledge of that faet will make him feel poor, no matter how great bis possessions. Practically, then, there is no such thing as wealth. That is, there is no such thing as a wealthy man. If a man believes himself rich, and has everything he desires and feeis that he needs, he really is 'rich, no matter if he is worth only ten dollars. A man making money is like the little girl being fed with ice-cream by her aunt in Punch's picture. " Don't you think you have heel enough, Ethel ? * asks the aunt. • I may think so, auntie, but I don't feel so.' As most men grow richer thi ir ambitions, tastes, and desires expand largely, even to an extent wholly disproportionate to their acquisitions, and many men have felt much poorer when they had accumulated a fortune of five million dollars than they did when they had but one million, for the reason that their ideas had so'enlarged that they desired to live in such magnificence or to carry out such great schemes of business enterprise or philanthropy as the income from ten million dollars could not possibly compass." George M. Pullman, the palace-car king, writes the following remarkable reply : —" For my own part, I can only say that I am not one iota happier now than I was in the days when I had not a dollar that I could call my own, save that for which I worked from sunny morn to dewy eve. Now that my circumstances have improved, I can only wear one suit of clothes at a time, and that suit is no better than the one I wore then. 1 ate three square meals daily at that time, and cannot-eat any mote now. Then I had no responsibility and no cares. I only had to be at my post and do my duty, and when my hours of work were over my mind and body were free as those of a bird. I could go to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow, and sleep soundly till morning. Now that I have the weight of vast interests and busioess cares

contitai.ily rusting upon me, both in and out of wot king hours I do not sleep so well as then. All things considered, I believe I was quite as happy, if not much happier, when I was poor." " Undo " Russell Sage replied as follons : " Few people h'ave any idea of the many inconveniences which wealth brings. Those who have will never ask such a foolish qnestion as ' Does wealth bring happiness ? ' First of all, there are the begging-letter writers. Once let people think you are rich and beFore a year has passed you will have received from people you never heard of before requests for loans, gifts, and offices of profit sufficient to exhaust- the combined patronage of all the Lord Chancellors Great Britain has ever had, and to break the Bank of England. A rich man is compelled to live constantly in the public eye. Privacy is practicully impossible for him." J. W. Maokay, the Califoruian bonanza king, wrote :—" lam surprised that anyone should think for a moment that happiness depends on wealth. I was very happy during my early struggles with poverty. I enjoyed the toil, privation, and hardship I endured to win wealth. When a labourer iu a New York shipyard, when swinging a pick and shovel as a miner, I was as happy as I can ever be. I had faith in and hope for the future, and when I began to realise that hope by working hard, saving my money, and watching my opportunities, what a happiness I experienced—such happiness as the possession of my subsequent fortune has failed to give me. I must, therefore, answer your question by saying that I do not think wealth brings happiness." General Russell A. Alger, one of the wealthiest men in the West, replied :—" Men are no happier when rich thin when poor. How can they be ? Do you think some great millionaire is any happier driving some famous trotter which enjoys a national reputation and has cost his owner several thousand dollars than a fifteen-dbllar-a-week clerk hiring a livery stable horse and driving out with his best girl ? Not a whit. For 150 dollars a poor man can own a horse that will give him just as much pleasure as a 40,000 dollars Maud S. There you have the whole thing in a nutshell." Governor Morton is another millionaire who regards his days of poverty as especially happy ones. His reply was :—" When 1 was a poor young man of 20 years of age, clerking in a country store, I used to think that if, by any wild freak of fortune, 1 could ever accumulate 100,000 dollars I should be the happiest man alive. Now that I possess that amount, and possibly a little more, I do not think 1 am really any happier than in my poorer earlier days."

Jay Cooke, famous in the old days of Wallstreet, now an old man, living in Pbiladepbia, but forgotten, replied :—" My answer to the question, • Does wealth bring happiness ?' is emphatically *No !' Wealth hampers a man in so many ways and brings with it so many anxie'ies that it is more often a destroyer of happiness. A man who has once mounted to the summit of fortune's hill, and then has fallen from that dizzy height, experiences much greater happiness when he has accumulated wealth for the second time*, should he be so fortunate, than when he first became wealthy. He then has the happiness of paying his debts. The happiest moment of ray life was when I paid the last dividend on all proved claims against me, and squared myself with the world on the 17« hof November, 1890. lam inclined to think that to many men the pursuit of wealth is more apt to bring happiness than is wealth itself."

Austin Corbin, the millionaire railway man, replied: —" I never realised more forcibly that wealth does not bring happiness than one day at Newport. I had been tooling along the fashionable drive, scanning the faces of passersby. All were evidently bored to death. Leaving the Four Hundred element, I drove to an unfashionable and remote part of the beach. There, in an eligible situation, at just the right distance from the water for enjoyment, I saw v neat cottage adorned with the legend : —• Mrs. O'Donnelly's Ladies' and Geut.'s BoardiugHouse. Terms, 6 dollars per week.' A number of athletic-looking young men and a bevy of buxom, rosy-cheeked young girls were congregated on the porch and lawn. What a contrast the charmingly-healthful and natural appearance of these young' people to that of the blighted, artificial victims of fashion I hid just left. They were all in negligee costume, and merriment, playfulness, and health sparkled in every eye and rang out heartily from every lip. « Oh/ I thought, «if I could only escape from the fashionable prison called a hotel by courtesy, where I am confined, with what inexpressible joy I would take board at Mrs. O'Donnelly's.' "