Note Return to text — REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES AND NEGLECTED CRIMES.

It is a just and patriotic sentiment which looks with apprehension upon the great and irresponsible power developed by extreme wealth, which lifts the wealthy far above society, enabling them to indulge in profligate luxury, and to squander in a single evening’s pleasure (or display without pleasure) an amount that would make life prosperous to a hundred suffering families, or on a single piece of architectural splendor, enough to complete the education of the entire youth of a city—wealth enabling them to rival the despots of Europe in social ostentation, while almost within hearing of their revelry, ten or twenty thousand are suffering from want of employment, want of health, want of education, want of industrial skill, which society did not give them, suffering the slow death that comes through debility, emaciation, and disease, from toil and poverty, the sufferer being sometimes a woman in whom all the virtues have blossomed only to perish in the chilling atmosphere of poverty.16 This may be utterly senseless talk to those in whom the sentiment of brotherhood is dead, but it expresses sentiments to which millions respond, and it is refreshing to see that these statements, which at last have found free expression through The Arena, are also beginning to find a home in the minds of public leaders, whose voices will compel attention. I allude to the philanthropic expressions of the Emperor of Germany, and to the language of Mr. Gladstone, who shows that the necessity of philanthropic action on the part of the wealthy is increased by their changed attitude, as they are becoming more isolated from the people, and no longer take that friendly personal interest in their tenants and employes of every grade, which was formerly common. In this country, social ostentation is a great power to increase this separation of ranks, and the book of Jacob A. Riis, “How the Other Half Lives,” ought to be studied by every wealthy citizen as well as by reformers. Herbert Spencer, in a recent thoughtful essay, refers to this increasing interest in social welfare thus: “He is struck, too, by the contrast between the small space which popular welfare then occupied in the public attention, and the large space it now occupies, with the result that outside and inside Parliament, plans to benefit the millions form the leading topics, and every one having means is expected to join in some philanthropic effort.” This is because the millions demand it, and they who, like the writer, have for half a century been interested in behalf of the millions, may now be listened to.