Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 211, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1911 — CAN’T FIND HAPPINESS [ARTICLE]

CAN’T FIND HAPPINESS

OLD MONEYBAGS IS BOTH A PLUTOCRAT AND PAUPER. Ho Has Amassed Great Wealth and Lost All That Was Best in Him.

Dun and Bradstreet rate him rich. His name works magic t at the bank. His check is good for millions. His vaults are stuffed with stocks and bonds. But his dollars have an actual value of five cents each. He is bloated with riches and writhing in poverty —he’s a plutocrat and a pauper at the same time. r Fate has made an ass of him —she has given him all the cash he asked for, but she omitted the formula that gives it value. He has the lock, but he can’t find the key—he doesn’t know what to do with his money. He is a lineal descendant of King Midas —he learned the golden touch, but he can’t control its power. In his madness for millions he has transmuted all the realities of life into useless trash. He placed his springtime in the minting press—he turned all his hopes and all his visions into coin—stamped all the tenderness out of his heart and milled the peace of his soul. Year by year he went on amassing wealth and just as steadily losing all that was best in him. All that was kindly—all that was'joyous—he turned to dross. Now in his silver age he is yearning for his golden youthT There is an ache that he doesn’t understand—a hungry hole in his breast where godly heritages shriveled and died from disuse. ' He can’t enjoy himself —he isn’t trained for the job.

His rapacity destroyed his capacity to comprehend the big message. He owns a yacht, but it’s a drifting argosy with dead sails —with all his wealth he can’t make It carry him Ihto the land of dreams. He can’t see—he can’t hear —greed has dulled his eye—made him color-i blind—none of the wonders of life has a meaning. For him the mountain summits are; bare —the flowers have died on the 1 slopes and the north winds have locked the brooks and silenced the waterfall. . He is a man without illusions —a moral cripple—a Croesus starving in his treasure vaults. When you were wrapping yourself In Ideals, he was rapping our ideas: You have only sold your services—he has put every drop of his blood Into the market —and the joke of it all is that he had to wait until winter before he found that every dollar is not the same size—that Its purchasing power varies with the Individual. He has overpaid. No man gets out of existence more than his legitimate allotment. If he gains in one direction, he loses a compensating something in another way. The price of the king’s crown is heavy with heartache. The meanest subject in his kingdom can marry as he wills, but the mightiest of monarchs must mate at the dictate of the state. The embezzler defaults with property that he did not earn, but from that moment every hour of every day is haunted with the dread of detection. The roisterer Indulges himself in every whim and w?lfulness, but settles the bill when his wasted vitality exposes him to disease against which the continent man has stored sufficient energy to defend himself. Old John Moneybags has the price of every form of enjoyment, but he can’t locate the trails that lead to happiness: It isn’t the size Of a man’s roll, but the size of a man’s soul that counts. — Woman’s World.