106 PERILS. — WEALTH. 



them, are to be multiplied many fold. The collective 

 energ}^ or working-power of a nation includes its human 

 power, its horse power and its steam power. (The water 

 power is not included.) Mr. Mulhall estimated in 1888 

 that our collective energy then reached 90,000 millions 

 of "foot-tons daily." That is, it was sufficient to raise 

 90,000 million tons one foot in a day.^ Our working- 

 power is thus found by Mr. Mulhall to be nearly equal 

 to that of the United Kingdom and G-ermany combined, 

 whose population aggregates 82,000,000 souls. He also 

 estimated that in 1890 our working-power would reach 

 "almost 100,000 millions of foot-tons daily.'' This 

 reduced to man-power would be equal to 333,000,000 

 men. Think of such a power at work for the enriching 

 of our nation, and rapidly increasing. It is a promise of 

 unspeakable wealth. And such wealth contains might}' 

 possibilities, both for good and evil. Let us, in this 

 connection, look at the latter. 



1. As civilization increases, wealth has more meaning, 

 and money a larger representative power. Civilization 

 multiplies wants, which money affords the means of 

 gratifying. With the growth of civilization, therefore, 

 money will be an ever-increasing power, and the object 

 of ever-increasing desire. Hence the danger of Mam- 

 moyiism, growing more and more intense and infatuated. 

 The love of money is the besetting sin of commercial 

 peoples, and runs in the very blood of Anglo-Saxons, 

 who are the great wealth-creators of the world. Our 

 soil is peculiarly favorable to the growth of this "root 

 of all evil " ; and for tw^o reasons. First, wealth is more 

 easily amassed here than anywhere else in the world, of 

 which we have already seen sufficient proof; and, sec- 

 ond, wealth means more, has more power, here than 

 elsewhere. Every nation has its aristocracy. In other 

 lands the aristocracy is one of birth ; in ours it is one of 

 wealth. It is useless for us to protest that we are demo- 



^ MulhalPs Growth of American Industries and Wealth, p. 59. Saxon and 

 Co., London. 



