THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



15 



The MoLn. About Town. 



WHAT MONEY WILL BUY. 



Rich iieiiple :irc liec-omiiis so odiiiiiu.n 

 in this country that they are almnst a 

 nuisance. If they had tlie tact to hide tlie 

 fact that tliey are rich it would not be sii 

 bad. but instead of attempting to hid(> it 

 a lot of them don't lino^v any better than 

 to nialie a parade of it. And they liavo 

 such big, shiny, red and yellow automo- 

 biles, each seeming to strive to have the 

 biggest and shiniest and reddest or yellow- 

 est, and they wear such big diamonds and 

 such heavy silks and live in such big, new 

 stone houses with such glittering plate 

 .glass windows, the blinds raised so that 

 the passerby may see the magnificent 

 gorgeousness of the interior, and they 

 shove in and parade around so at the sum- 

 mer resorts and the theaters, that they are 

 a regular bore. And they are becoming so 

 common that there is scarcely anywhere a 

 fellow jcan go and escape them. It's an 

 actual fact. 



And there is such a misconception 

 among ihem as to what their position 

 really is and as to what tlieir money can 

 buy for them, that if most of them were 

 not such nuisances one would almost feci 

 sorr.v for them. 



I mean the excessively rich people, you 

 understand. Those who have more money 

 than they Jiuow what to do with, whose 

 richness sticks out on them like the fat 

 on a prize ox. and who wheeze and puff 

 with the weight of it. 



I do not believe this class of people 

 should be discriminated against merely be- 

 cause they are rich. I believe they should 

 be given a fair show, but there is un- 

 donbtedl.v a tendency on the part of a good 

 many people to turn them down cold. 



I do not think this Is fair, I know that 

 the chances are that an unusually rich 

 person is a snob, especially if he has no 

 1 letter taste than to make a parade of his 

 wealth, but still he should be given an op- 

 portunity to demonstrate that there is 

 something in him. Ever.vone is entitled to 

 .1 fair show. 



The trouble wliicli these people have 

 arises from a misconception of what their 

 money will buy them. There are certain 

 Ihirigs in the line of automobiles and dia- 

 monds aud big stone houses that their 

 money will buy, but it will not buy them 

 lh(> friendship, esteem or comi)anionship of 

 those who.se friendship, esteem and com- 

 panionship are worth having. They must 

 sliow (lualities of mind and heart which 

 will attract such people, and what I con- 

 lend is that they should be given an op- 

 portunity to demonstrate that becaase 

 they are excessively rich they are not 

 necessarily selfish, borisli and unattract- 

 ive, I know that the presumption is 

 against them, but they should be given the 

 licnctit of the doubt. 



BY C. D. STRODE. 



.\s bi'fore said, the troul)le which people 

 witli an tninsual amount of money have in 

 tlicse matters arises from a misconception 

 as to what mone,v will buy, The.v have 

 tlie delusion that it will procure them en- 

 trance into the homes of people to whom 

 they are uncongenial; that people of wit 

 and culture and refinement will take them 

 into companionship merel.v because they 

 liave large wads of money. It is a very 

 great mi.stake. 



I have had no great experience in so- 

 ciet.v. but I have observed enough to know 

 that the people who compose the inner 

 circle of "good societ.v." tho circle into 

 which the vast host of newl.v rich people 

 are constantly striving to enter, are bright, 

 cultured and intelligent folk, who have 

 sutiicient means to devote a certain amount 

 of leisure to enjoying themselves in a 

 quiet and miostentatious way. and who 

 cannot see wh.v the.v should be bored by 

 uncongenial people for no other reason 

 than that those people have large bundles 

 of mone.v. 



In business you must take people as 

 they come. Business is business, but 

 when you leave .vour office and have a 

 few hours to spend in relaxation you want 

 to pick your company, and whether the 

 people with big diamonds and red and 

 yellow automobiles and big stone houses, 

 with glittering plate glass windows, like 

 it or not, that is what you are goin.g to do. 



I'nderstand, I would not have these pain- 

 full.v wealthy people discriminated a.gainst 

 merely because they are wealthy. It is 

 true that much money-getting has a 

 tendency to harden men and toughen them 

 and contract them into a condition of un- 

 attractiveness. Still there are men \\ l\o 

 come out of tlie process .prett.v decent 

 fellows. 



Or the.v nia.v have; inheritetl their money, 

 and while victims of inherited mone.v 

 usually lack tliat manliness of character 

 so essential to good companionship, I have 

 known some fairly companionable meu of 

 this class. What I contend is that these 

 men should be judged stricti.v on their 

 merits and not ostracised simi)ly because 

 the.v had the misfortune to inherit a lot of 

 money. 



* * * 



You can see lli.-it 1 am in a bad humor. 

 I liad to sjiend a few days ir. onq of the 

 so-called fashionable .summer resorts, near 

 t'liicago, and the exhibition I witnessed 

 lliere was something to make .vou feel 

 sorr.v for the peopI(>. 



Were they having any fun? Not a bit 

 of it. They were on dress parade all day 

 and half the night. And the.v were jealous 

 and envious of one another, and conse- 

 (luently miserable, as one could plainly 

 see. And there were such droves of them, 

 and tlii'.v were so rich — so awfullv 



rich, so apparently, so aggressively, so 

 flamboyantly rich that it would nearly 

 make yon sick. They had cajitured 

 the place and those intelligent and retined 

 people who wanted to have some fun aud 

 ease among people of their own kind had 

 been crowded out. They had been forced 

 to hunt a new place, and as soon as they 

 have found it and got settled in it and 

 these rich cattle find out where it is they 

 will chase them up, and in trying to butt 

 in drive them to move again. 



You see these rich folk have an idea 

 that getting into the Inner Circle is alto- 

 gether a matter of money, when in fact 

 monej- hasn't anything to do with it. The 

 Inner Circle of society is composed of a 

 certain class of people who have banded 

 together to have a good time and enjoy 

 themselves, and when these people come 

 in contact with an outsider, who is con- 

 genial and can add his share to the com- 

 mon fund of entertainment they gladly 

 take him in, I!ut they draw the line on 

 taking people in merel.v because they have 

 a lot of mone.v. In fact, an excessively, 

 abnormall.v large bunch of money is so apt 

 til cause fatt.v degeneration of character 

 that the Inner Circle is apt to have a 

 strong prejudice against anyone in 110s- 

 session thereof. 



Jlone.v won't buy social position in this 

 countr,v. 



A good man.v jieople don't understand 

 that. A good many believe 'that if the.v 

 had the means — if they had the money, all 

 they would need to do would be to set up 

 the automobiles, the big diamonds and the 

 stone house with the plate glass windows, 

 to be right in the head push, The.v never 

 made a gi'eater mistake. They get among 

 a cla.ss of people like themselves and they 

 throng the high-priced summer resorts, 

 and sit about in their heavy iinery, while 

 the Inner Circle, the goal of .ill their striv- 

 ing, is up in the mountains somewhere in 

 negligee shirts and gingham dresses, hav- 

 ing a dickens of a good time. 



The outside people, those who are too 

 busy to devote au.v time to society, or don't 

 care for it, get the impression that be- 

 cause these monstrously rich people get 

 their pictures and the pictures of their 

 horses and houses and yachts in the S'.in- 

 day papers, that they are really social 

 leaders. P.ut nobody knows what a farce 

 it all is belter than these same enormously 

 rich people, 



I'ou can get no surer proof that a famil.v 

 belongs to the Buttinski tribe and not to 

 the Inner Circle than by seeing a page in 

 a yellow Sunday newspaper devoted to 

 jihotographs of different members of ihe 

 family and a "cozy corner in the library," 

 etc. The people who are reall.v in the 

 Inner Circle are modest, sensible folk, like 

 you and I, who may be rich or may not. 



