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Right Reverend William Lawrence
THE RELATION OF WEALTH TO MORALS
THE RIGHT VIEW OF MATERIAL PROSPERITY--
THE ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH TENDS NOT TO
MORAL DECAY BUT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER--
THE PRIVILEGE OF GRATEFUL SERVICE
TO WHICH MANY RICH MEN DEDICATE THEMSELVE--
WHAT THE REAL DANGERS OF RICHES
ARE
BY
THE RIGHT REVEREND WILLIAM LAWRENCE
BISHOP OF MASSACHUSETTS
THERE is a certain distrust on the part
of our people as to the effect of material prosperity on their morality. We
shrink with some foreboding at the great increase of riches, and question whether
in the long run material prosperity does not tend toward the disintegration
of character.
History seems to support us in our distrust.
Visions arise of their fall from splendor of Tyre and Sidon, Babylon, Rome,
and Venice, and of great nations too. The question is started whether England
is not to-day, in the pride of her wealth and power, sowing the wind from which
in time she will reap the whirlwind.
Experience seems to add its support. Is
it not from the ranks of the poor that the leaders of the people have always
risen? Recall Abraham Lincoln and patriots of every generation.
The Bible has sustained the same note. Were
ever stronger words of warning uttered against the deceitfulness of riches than
those spoken by the peasant Jesus, who Himself had no place to lay His head?
And the Church has through the centuries upheld poverty as one of the surest
paths to Heaven: it has been a mark of the saint.
To be sure, in spite of history, experience,
and the Bible, men have gone on their way making money and hailing with joy
each age of material prosperity. The answer is: "This only proves the case;
men are of the world, riches are deceitful, and the Bible is true; the world
is given over to Mammon. In the increase of material wealth and the accumulation
of riches the man who seeks the higher life has no part."
In the face of this comes the statement
of the chief statistician of our census--from one,therefore, who speaks with
authority: "The present census, when completed, will unquestionably show that
the visible material wealth in this country now has a value of ninety billion
dollars. This is an addition since 1890 of twenty-five billion dollars. This
is a saving greater than all the people of the Western Continent had been able
to make from the discovery of Columbus to the breaking out of the Civil War."
If our reasoning from history, experience,
and the Bible is correct, we, a Christian people, have rubbed a sponge over
the pages of the Bible and are in for orgies and a downfall to which the fall
of Rome is a very tame incident.
May it not be well, however, to revise our
inferences from history, experience, and the Bible? History tells us that, while
riches have been an item and an indirect cause of national decay, innumerable
other conditions entered in. Therefore, while wealth has been a source of danger,
it has not necessarily led to demoralization.
That leaders have sprung from the ranks
of the poor is true and always will be true, so long as force of character exists
in every class. But there are other conditions than a lack of wealth at the
source of their uprising.
And as to the Bible: while every word that
can be quoted against the rich is as true as any other word, other words and
deeds are as true; and the parables of our Lord on the stewardship of wealth,
His association with the wealthy, strike another and complementary note. Both
notes are essential to the harmony of His life and teachings. His thought was
not of the conditions, rich or poor, but of a higher life, the character rising
out of the conditions--fortunately, for we are released from that subtle hypocrisy
which has beset the Christian through the ages, bemoaning the deceitfulness
of riches and, at the same time, working with all his might to earn a competence,
and a fortune if he can.
MAN "BORN TO BE RICH"
Now we are in a position to affirm that
neither history, experience, nor the Bible necessarily sustains the common
distrust of the effect of material wealth on morality. Our path of study is
made more clear. Two positive principles lead us out on our path.
The first is that man, when he is strong,
will conquer Nature, open up her and harness them to his service. This is his
play, his exercise, his divine mission.
"Man," says Emerson, "is born to be rich.
He is thoroughly related, and is tempted out by his appetites and fancies to
the conquest of this and that piece of Nature, until he finds his well-being
in the use ot the planet, and of more planets than his own. Wealth requires,
besides the crust of bread and the roof, the freedom of the city, the freedom
of the earth." "The strong race is strong on these terms."
Man draws to himself material wealth as
surely, as naturally, and as necessarily as the oak draws the elements into
itself from the earth.
The other principle is that, in the long
run, it is only to the man of morality that wealth comes. We believe in the
harmony of God's Universe. We know that it is only by working along His laws
natural and spiritual that we can work with efficiency. Only by working along
the lines of right thinking and right living can the secrets and wealth of
Nature be revealed. We, like the Psalmist, occasionally see the wicked prosper,
but only occasionally.
Put two men in adjoining fields, one man
strong and normal, the other weak and listless. One picks up his spade, turns
over the earth and works till sunset. The other turns over a few clods, gets
a drink from the spring, takes a nap, and loafs back to his work. In a few years
one will be rich for his needs and the other a pauper dependent on the first,
and growling at his prosperity.
Put ten thousand immoral men to live and
work in one fertile valley and ten thousand moral men to live and work in the
next valley and the question is soon answered as to who wins the material wealth.
Godliness is in league with riches.
Now we return with an easier mind and clearer
conscience to the problem of our twenty-five billion dollars in a decade.
My question is: Is the material prosperity
of this Nation favorable or unfavorable to the morality of the people?
The first thought is, Who has prospered?
Who has got the money?
I take it that the loudest answer would
be, The millionaires, the capitalists, and the incompetent but luxurious rich;
and, as we think of that twenty-five billion, our thoughts run over the yachts,
the palaces, and the luxuries that flaunt themselves before the public.
WHO THE RICH ARE
As I was beginning to write this paper an
Irishman with his horse and wagon drew up at my back door. Note that I say his
horse and wagon. Twenty years ago that Irishman, then hardly twenty years
old, landed in Boston, illiterate, uncouth, scarcely able to make himself understood
in English. There was no symptom of brains, alertness, or ambition. He got
a job to tend a few cows. Soon the American atmosphere began to take hold. He
discovered that here every man has his chance. With his first earnings he bought
a suit of clothes; he gained self-respect. Then he sent money home; then he
got a job to drive a horse; he opened an account at the savings bank; then evening
school; more money in the bank. He changed to a better job, married a thrifty
wife, and to-day he owns his house, stable, horse, wagon, and bicycle; has a
good sum at the bank, supports five children, and has half a dozen men working
under him. He is a capitalist, and his yearly earnings represent the income
on $30,000. He had no "pull"; he has made his own way by grit, physical strength,
and increasing intelligence. He has had material prosperity. His older brother,
who paid his passage over, has had material prosperity, and his younger brother,
whose passage my friend paid, has had material prosperity.
Now we are beginning to get an idea as to
where the savings are. They are in the hands of hundreds of thousands of just
such men, and of scores of thousands of men whose incomes ten years ago were
two and five thousand, and are now five and ten thousand; and of thousands
of others whose incomes have risen from ten to thirty thousand. So that, when
you get to the multi-millionaires, you have only a fraction to distribute among
them. And of them the fact is that only a small fraction of their income can
be spent upon their own pleasure and luxury; the bulk of what they get has to
be reinvested, and becomes the means whereby thousands earn their wages. They
are simply trustees of a fraction of the national property.
When, then, the question is asked, "Is the
material prosperity of this nation favorable or unfavorable to the morality
of the people?" I say with all emphasis, "In the long run, and by all means,
favorable!"
In other words, to seek for and earn wealth
is a sign of a natural, vigorous, and strong character. Wherever strong men
are, there they will turn into the activities of life. In the ages of chivalry
you will find them on the crusades or seeking the Golden Fleece; in college
life you will find them high in rank, in the boat, or on the athletic field;
in an industrial age you will find them eager, straining every nerve in the
development of the great industries. The race is to the strong. The search for
material wealth is therefore as natural and necessary to the man as is the pushing
out of its roots for more moisture and food to the oak. This is man's play,
his exercise, the expression of his powers, his personality. You can no more
suppress it than you can suppress the tide of the ocean. For one man who seeks
money for its own sake there are ten who seek it for the satisfaction of the
seeking, the power there is in it, and the use they can make of it. There is
the exhilaration of feeling one's self grow in one's surroundings; the man reaches
out, lays hold of this, that, and the other interest, scheme, and problem. He
is building up a fortune? Yes, but his joy is also that he is building up a
stronger, abler, and more powerful man. There are two men that have none of
this ambition: the gilded, listless youth and the ragged, listless pauper to
whom he tosses a dime; they are in the same class.
We are now ready to take up the subject
in a little more detail. How is it favorable? The parable of my Irish friend
gives the answer.
In the first place, and as I have already
sug- gested, the effort to make his living and add to his comforts and power
gives free play to a man's activities and leads to a development of his faculties.
In an age and country where the greater openings are in commercial lines, there
the stronger men and the mass of them will move. It is not a question of worldliness
or of love of money, but of the natural use and legitimate play of men's faculties.
An effort to suppress this action is not a religious duty, but a disastrous
error, sure to fail.
SELF-RESPECT AND SELF-MASTERY
Besides this natural play of the faculties
comes the development of self-respect and ambition. In the uprise from a lower
to a higher civilization, these are the basal elements. Watch the cart-loads
of Polish or Italian immigrants as they are hauled away from the dock. Study
their lifeless expression, their hang-dog look, and their almost cowering
posture. Follow them and study them five years later: note the gradual straightening
of the body, the kindling of the eye, and the alertness of the whole person
as the men, women, and children begin to realize their opportunities, bring
in their wages, and move to better quarters. Petty temptations and deep degradations
that might have overwhelmed them on their arrival cannot now touch them.
With this comes also the power of self-mastery. The savage eats what he kills and spends what he has. In the movement
towards civilization through material wealth, questions come up for decision
every hour. Shall I spend? Shall I save? How shall I spend? How can I earn more?
Shall I go into partnership with a capital of ten dollars, or shall I wait
until I have fifty dollars?
Wage earners are not to-day, as they were
in earlier days, hungering for the bare physical necessities of life. They
are hungering now, and it marks an upward movement in civilization, for higher
things, education, social life, relaxation, and the development of the higher
faculties.
To be sure, a certain fraction wilt under
the strain, take to drink, to lust, to laziness. There is always the thin line
of stragglers behind every army, but the great body of the American people are
marching upwards in prosperity through the mastery of their
lower tastes and passions to the development of the higher. From rags to clothes,
from filth to cleanliness, from disease to health; from bare walls to pictures;
from ignorance to education; from narrow and petty talk to books and music and
art; from superstition to a more rational religion; from crudity to refinement;
from self-centralization to the conception of a social unity.
Here in this last phrase we strike the next
step in development. In this increase of wealth, this rapid communication which
goes with it, this shrinking of the earth's surface and unifying of peoples
through commerce, men and women are realizing their relations to society.
That there are those who in the deepest
poverty, sustain the spirit of unselfishness and exhibit a self-sacrifice for
others which puts their richer neighbors to the blush we know by experience.
At the same time, the fact is that for the mass and in the long run grinding
poverty does grind down the character: in the struggle for bare existence and
for the very life of one's children there is developed an intense self-centralization
and a hardness which is destructive of the social instinct and of the finer
graces. When, however, through the increase of wealth man has extended his interests,
his vision, and his opportunities, "he is thoroughly related." His lines run
out in every direction; he lays his finger upon all the broader interests of
life, the school, the church, and the college. He reaches through commerce to
the ends of the earth. He discovers one bond which is essential to the social
unity in this commercial age--the bond of faith in other men; for in credit,
on belief in others, our whole social and commercial fabric is built. And
when a man has reached this point, he has indeed reached one of the high plateaus
of character: from this rise the higher mountain peaks of Christian graces,
but here he is on the standing-ground of the higher civilization.
As I write I can almost feel the silent
protest of some critics. Are not these qualities, self-respect, self-mastery,
a sense of social unity, and mutual confidence, the common- places of life?
Is this the only response of material wealth in its relation to morality?
These are to us now the commonplaces of
life: they are at the same time the fundamentals of character and of morality.
If material prosperity has been one of the great instruments (and I believe
it has) in bringing the great body of our people even to approach this plateau
of character, it has more than justified itself.
One might, however, mention other and finer
qualities that follow in these days the train of prosperity. I instance only
one. We will strike up one mountain peak: it is that of joyful and grateful
service.
THE PRIVILEGE OF GRATEFUL SERVICE
In other days we have heard much of "the
sweet uses of adversity": the note still lingers in sermons and will linger
as long as Christianity stands. There is, however, the other note that sounds
strong in these days, the privilege of grateful service.
I have in mind now a man of wealth (you
can conjure up many like him) who lives handsomely and entertains; he has everything that purveys to his health and comfort. All these things are tributary
to what? To the man's efficiency in his complete devotion to the social, educational,
and charitable interests to which he gives his life. He is Christ's as much
as was St. Paul, he is consecrated as was St. Francis of Assisi; and in recognition of the bounty with which God has blessed him he does not sell all that
he has, but he uses all that he has, and, as he believes, in the wisest way,
for the relief of the poor, the upbuilding of social standards, and the upholding of righteousness among the people. The Christian centuries, with all
their asceticism and monasticism, with their great and noble saints, have,
I believe, never witnessed a sweeter, more gracious, and more complete consecration
than that which exists in the lives of hundreds of men and women in the cities
and towns of this country, who, out of a sense of grateful service to God for
His bounty, are giving themselves with all joy to the welfare of the people.
And if ever Christ's words have been obeyed to the letter, they are obeyed to-day
by those who are living out His precepts of the stewardship of wealth.
As we think of the voluntary and glad service given to society, to the State, the Church, to education, art, andcharity,
of the army of able men and women who, without thought
of pay, are serving upon directories of savings banks and national banks, life
insurance companies, railroads, mills, trusts and corporations, public commissions,
and offices of all sorts, schools and colleges, churches and charities; as we
run our thoughts over the free services of the doctors, of the lawyers, for
their poorer clients, we are amazed at the magnitude of unpaid service, which
is now taken for granted, and at the cheerful and glad spirit in which it is
carried through. Material prosperity is helping to make the national character
sweeter, more joyous, more unselfish, more Christlike. That is my answer to
the question as to the relation of material prosperity to morality.
Again I feel a silent protest. Is not the
writer going rather far? We did not believe that our twenty-five billions would
lead to orgies; but is he not getting rather close to the millennium? Are there
no shadows and dark spaces in the radiance which he seems to think that wealth
is shedding around us?
Yes, my friendly critic, there are, and
to a mention of a few of them I give the pages that are left.
THE SPIRIT OF COMMERCIALISM
First and most pervasive, I name the spirit
of commercialism. It crops up in many forms and places, hydra-headed.
Is it any wonder? When one realizes that
in the last ten years seventy millions of people have earned their living, paid
their bills, and have at the same time increased the property of the Nation
by twenty-five billions of dollars, we reach a slight conception of the intensity, the industry, the enterprise, and the ability with which those people
have thought, worked, and reaped. One wonders that religion, charity, or culture
have survived the strain at all. When the eye and ambition of a strong man are
set upon a purpose, he sometimes neglects other considerations; he is not over
nice about the rights of others; he occasionally overrides the weak, crushes
out the helpless, and forgets to stop and pick up those that have fallen by
the way.
We know how that was in England: we remember
the report of the Commission by Lord Shaftesbury as to the horrible condition
of the miners, men, women, and children.
That was simply one phase in the development
of the great movement of modern industrialism. It was a neglect and forgetfulness
under a new pressure, rather than deliberate cruelty. The facts once known,
attention called, and reforms began; and they have been going on in behalf
of the working people ever since. Much, very much, has been done.
As conditions change, much remains to do.
The better adjustment of rights, wages, and taxes will call for the highest
intelligence and strongest character. Again, the small tradesman has driven
away the little counter where a widow earned her living, the larger tradesman
has wiped out the small tradesman, and the department store is now finishing
off some of the large tradesmen. It is hard, but it is a part of the great economic
movement. It endangers some of the fundamentals of morality, and destroys for
the time some of the finer graces.
Ephemeral success sometimes follows deceit, and that breeds a body of commercial frauds; but they cannot endure. A
fortune is won by an unscrupulous adventurer; and a hundred fortunes are lost
and characters spoiled in trying to follow suit. An ignorant man happens upon
wealth or by some mysterious commercial ability wins wealth, and he then thinks
himself omniscient. He, not God, is his own creator. He goes to church, but
he is Godless. When a nation of people have been seeking for clothes, houses,
and comforts in the upbuilding of civilization, is it any wonder that they do
not realize that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things that
he possesseth? There are deceit, hardness, materialism, and vulgarity in the
commercial world; and to me the vulgarest of all is not the diamond-studded
operator, but the horde of mothers crushing each other around the bargain counter
in their endeavor to get something, and that so small, for nothing. The worst
of commercialism is that it does not stop at the office, but enters the home,
taints the marriage vow, and poisons social life at its springs.
Beyond these rudimentary forms of commercialism,
there is another, even more dangerous, because it threatens the liberties and
rights of the people. The eye of the public is on it now. I refer to the reation
of concentrated masses of wealth to the public service.
I have no time to more than suggest a few
of the conditions that have led up to this. Industrial enterprise has drawn
many of the strongest and ablest men from political to commercial interests;
society and legislation now do for the people what in other days the landlord
did; they are concerned more and more with industrial, commercial, and financial questions, from the national tariff to the size of a house-drain. Just
at this time, and because of our great industrial development and prosperity,
a horde of ignorant voters waiting to be moulded by any strong leader have come
to this shore. The wide distribution of wealth has driven merchants and mechanics,
widows and trustees of orphans, doctors and ministers, to invest their savings
in great enterprises, corporations, and trusts, which, to succeed, must be directed
by a few men. We have therefore this situation: a few men responsible for the
safekeeping and development of enormous properties, dependent upon legislation,
and a great mass of voters, many of them ignorant, represented by their own
kind in city or state government, strongly organized by a leader who is in
it for what he can get out of it, and who is ever alert with his legislative
cohorts to "strike" the great corporations. The people believe that the officers
of great corporations so manage that they can get what they want, call it by
assessment, bribery, ransom, or what you will, and they brand those otherwise
respectable men as cowards and traitors to public liberty.
THE RICH MAN AND THE BURGLAR
A burglar breaks into your house, awakes
you, and "strikes" you for that which is in your safe downstairs. You expostulate:
he answers that he will burn your house. But your children, you cry, will they
be safe? He does not know: he wants the money. But if you give it to him, he
will try the same on other people. It is against all public duty for you to
yield. Again, the threat that he will burn your house; and you, miserable, conscience-stricken
that you are doing a cowardly thing, and one against the safety of the public,
crawl downstairs, open the safe, and hand over the cash. You have saved your
house and children, but how about your duty to the public and your neighbors,
as well as to yourself?
This is very much the position of the great
trustees of capital, the heads of our great corporations, at the hands of the
modern bandit. Shall they jeopardize the income of women and children, merchants
and mechanics, and perhaps drive them into poverty? Or shall they accept the
situation, yield to the threat, and trust to the authorities to seize the robber,
or through an aroused public opinion so to vote, act, and legislate as to change
the law and stop this modern brigandage? That some of the promoters and managers
of great corporations are unscrupulous is undoubtedly true. The jail is none
too good for them, if only the law would touch them. Nor have we a word of apology
or justification for any man who yields to or encourages blackmail. The difficulty,
however, is not a simple one. It concerns more than the directors and the politicians;
it relates to the rights and liberties of the people. I do not have so much
fear of the rich man in office, as I do of the poor but weak man in office and
the rich man outside. Through the interplay of aroused public opinion, better
legislation, and intelligent action, the relief will come. A younger generation,
with its eye keen upon that danger-point, is coming to the front.
In some cities of China the houses have
no windows on the street, only bare walls and the little door. The families
are isolated, narrow, and selfish: there is no public spirit. When the Chinese
boy returns home from his Christian Mission School, touched with the spirit
of Christian civilization, his first work in bringing civilization to his home
is to take a crowbar, knock a hole in the front wall, and make a window, that
he may peer out and people see in. He unifies society and creates a public
opinion. What is needed as our next step in civilization is to break a hole
and make a window that the public may see into the great corporations and trusts
and, what is just as important, that the managers may see out and recognize
the sentiment of the public.
Light and action--heroic action! There are
men to-day waiting and wanting to act, to throw off the shackles of the modern
bandit; but they dare not alone: their trusts are too great. What is wanted
is a group of men, high in position, great in power, who at great cost, if need
be, will stand and say, "Thus far, up to the lines of the nicest honor, shalt
thou go, and no farther."
The people have their eye upon the public
service. An administration may pay political debts by pushing ignorant and unworthy
men into the lower offices, but when it comes to filling positions of great
responsibility the President could not, and would not if he could, appoint men
less worthy than Wood in Cuba, Allen in Porto Rico, and Taft in the Philippines,
men of force, intelligence, and character. Collegiate education does not insure
character, but it does sift men and insure intelligence; and, as President
Pritchett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed out in his inaugural address, though less than one per cent of our population are college men,
yet from this very small fraction a majority of the legislative, executive,
and judicial places of the General Government which have to do in any large
way with shaping the policy and determining the character of the government,
are chosen.
THE DANGER FROM LUXURY
One other dark shadow, and I am done. The
persistent companion of riches is luxury and an ability to have what you want.
That vice and license are rampant in certain quarters is clear; that vulgar
wealth flaunts itself in the face of the people is beyond question; and that
the people are rather amused at the spectacle must be confessed. The theatre
syndicate will turn on to the boards whatever the people want; and the general
tone of the plays speaks not well for the taste and morality of the people.
The strain of temptation overwhelms a fraction of our youth. But one has no
more right to test the result of prosperity by the small class of the lazy and
luxurious than he has to test the result of poverty by the lazy tramp.
With all this said, the great mass of the
people are self-restrained and simple. Material prosperity has come apace,
and on the whole it uplifts. Responsibility sobers men and nations. We have
learned how to win wealth: we are learning how to use and spend it. Every year
marks a long step in advance in material prosperity, and character must march
in step. Without wealth, character is liable to narrow and harden. Without character, wealth will destroy. Wealth is upon us, increasing wealth. The call of
to-day is, then, for the uplift of character, the support of industry, education,
art, and every means of culture; the encouragement of the higher life; and,
above all, the deepening of the religious faith of the people; the rekindling
of the spirit, that, clothed with her material forces, the great personality
of this Nation may fulfil her divine destiny.
I have been clear, I trust, in my opinion
that material prosperity is in the long run favorable to morality. Let me be
as clear in the statement of that eternal truth, that neither a man's nor a
nation's life consists in the abundance of things that he possesseth.
In the investment of wealth in honest enterprise and business, lies our path of character. In the investment of wealth
in all that goes towards the uplift of the people in education, art, and religion
is another path of character. Above all, and first of all, stands the personal
life. The immoral rich man is a traitor to himself, to his material as well
as spiritual interests. Material prosperity is upon us; it is marching with
us. Character must keep step, aye, character must lead. We want great riches;
we want also great men.
Source: William Lawrence, "The Relation of Wealth to Morals." The World's
Work, 1 (January, 1901): 289-292.
