SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 165 



to the development of nature's resources. I do not need to 

 describe here how machinery has revolutionized agricultural 

 industry and transportation. Our grandfathers could not have 

 imagined the crops of dollars which by means of machinery we 

 now gather from our fields and mines. The country has become 

 literally intoxicated with the possibilities of speedy fortune- 

 making. We have come dangerously near, as a people, to 

 honor men not for wisdom or goodness but according to their 

 ability in accumulating dollars. For how long have we held 

 up as a hero to our schoolboys the man who, beginning with 

 nothing, has made his way upward — to what ? Why, to money, 

 loads of money! We have worshiped the "self-made man," 

 the "captain of industry." The chief activity of our educational 

 system has been to produce wealth-makers. What does the 

 word "success" commonly mean as it is applied today? Suc- 

 cess means the ability to make money, to own a fine house, to 

 ride in an automobile, to give a good dinner ! 



Our life, every phase of it, shows our great capacity for mak- 

 ing money — our failure to spend it wisely. What an example is 

 presented by the rich American who, having accumulated a 

 fortune in a few years, is running about the world trying to buy 

 excitement. 



Having had no training except as a money-maker, no intellec- 

 tual resources beyond that, no knowledge of how money may be 

 made really useful to himself or to society, he cuts, indeed, a 

 pathetic figure ! One of the things he does first is to build and 

 furnish a huge house in which he does not know how to live. 

 One such palace has just been completed at the cost of millions 

 of dollars in New York City by a rich man who is also a United 

 States senator — by purchase. It is visited by foreigners as a 

 pattern of American vulgarity and crudity. Millions of dollars 

 are expended every year in wasteful eating, drinking, and dress- 

 ing by people who know how to make money, but who do not 

 know how to use it. Visit any of our cities and you will find 



