my money--even then? What would I receive as a _quid pro quo_ for my
thirty thousand dollars?

I am not enough of a materialist to argue that my advantage over my less
successful fellow man lies in having a bigger house, men servants
instead of maid servants, and smoking cigars alleged to be from Havana
instead of from Tampa; but I believe I am right in asserting that my
social opportunities--in the broader sense--are vastly greater than his.
I am meeting bigger men and have my fingers in bigger things. I give
orders and he takes them.

My opinion has considerable weight in important matters, some of which
vitally affect large communities. My astuteness has put millions into
totally unexpected pockets and defeated the faultily expressed
intentions of many a testator. I can go to the White House and get an
immediate hearing, and I can do more than that with judges of the
Supreme Court in their private chambers.

In other words I am an active man of affairs, a man among men, a man of
force and influence, who, as we say, "cuts ice" in the metropolis. But
the economic weakness in the situation lies in the fact that a boiled
egg only costs the ordinary citizen ten cents and it costs me almost its
weight in gold.

Compare this de-luxe existence of mine with that of my forebears. We are
assured by most biographers that the subject of their eulogies was born
of poor but honest parents. My own parents were honest, but my father
was in comfortable circumstances and was able to give me the advantages
incident to an education, first at the local high school and later at
college. I did not as a boy get up while it was still dark and break the