become, and of the point at which they ("the State," of course) would
step in to rob a man of his earnings. These two writers only represent
a great deal of crude thinking and declaiming which is in fashion. I
never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon
his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrines of economy and the
practice of accumulation. A good father believes that he does wisely to
encourage enterprise, productive skill, prudent self-denial, and
judicious expenditure on the part of his son. The object is to teach
the boy to accumulate capital. If, however, the boy should read many of
the diatribes against "the rich" which are afloat in our literature; if
he should read or hear some of the current discussion about "capital";
and if, with the ingenuousness of youth, he should take these
productions at their literal sense, instead of discounting them, as his
father does, he would be forced to believe that he was on the path of
infamy when he was earning and saving capital. It is worth while to
consider which we mean or what we mean. Is it wicked to be rich? Is it
mean to be a capitalist? If the question is one of degree only, and it
is right to be rich up to a certain point and wrong to be richer, how
shall we find the point? Certainly, for practical purposes, we ought to
define the point nearer than between one and five millions of dollars.

There is an old ecclesiastical prejudice in favor of the poor and
against the rich. In days when men acted by ecclesiastical rules these
prejudices produced waste of capital, and helped mightily to replunge
Europe into barbarism. The prejudices are not yet dead, but they
survive in our society as ludicrous contradictions and inconsistencies.
One thing must be granted to the rich: they are good-natured. Perhaps
they do not recognize themselves, for a rich man is even harder to
define than a poor one. It is not uncommon to hear a clergyman utter
from the pulpit all the old prejudice in favor of the poor and against