Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1874 — “Haste to Grow Rich.” [ARTICLE]

“Haste to Grow Rich.”

In this Republic, where every man has at least a chance, the chance of genuine pecuniary prosperity is almost too small to enter into calculation. The material condition of the great majority is fixed, or, if not fixed, is limited—limited by temperament, training, habit, surroundings. The capacity to make money—albeit, not ennobling nor intellectual—is one of the rarest. It is a peculiar talent —difficult to cultivate, next to impossible to inspire. They who possess it manifest it early. They who possess it not are not slow to discover their lack, whatever their pretense to the contrary. It would seem to be a secular obligation for a man to make money, whether his constitution and taste so incline him or not. A certain amount he must make—enough to provide for himself and those naturally dependent upon Jiinf—or forfeit something of his self-respect. The very best that most of us can do is to keep even with the world. Not one man in fifty, it is said, dies out of debt. The estimate ma£ be excessive, but it is fair to put it at one in twenty. Think over your acquaintances! How many of them are not in arrears? And, of those in arrears, how many will be left so with advancing time? It appears strange that he who goes not out of lite poorer than he came into it should be an exception; and yet such is undeniably the fact. What idleness, then, to talk, in a general way; .of the hurry for wealth! Children cry for the moon, but not long. They soon learn that they cannot get it; that it will not come to them for all their tears. 00 with men. They may enter for the race; they may see the prize afar off; they may start upon the course. A brief while shall convince them they are wasting their breath, exhausting themselves to no purpose. The strong rupners outstrip them at once—leave *bem hopelessly behind. It is borne in upon them jthat riches are not for their winning, and they rest content with—rather mb resigned to—humble earnings. To these, who have despaired of financial tor tune, the iteration anent haste to grow rich must sound satirical. It is not unlike the penurious father who gave bis boy a penny with the counsel not to make

a beast of himself. Not unlike the temulent vagauodd; who, taking home a boon companion after a fortnight's debauch, asked hla poor wife to prepare dinner. “Dinner!” she echoed; “ I have nothing in the house. late tbe last crust this morning. You have not given me a cent tor more than a month I How can you expect me to prepare dinner without money?” “Come,” said the husband to his fellow, “ let us leave this mercenary wretch to the torment of her base ingratitude!” The talked-off haste to grow rich, in forty nine cases out of fifty, is simply the struggle for existence. In the metropolis more than elsewhere such talk is tiresomely common, notwithstanding that we have a tenement house population of over flalf a million. Do these unfortunates, deprived of fresh air. sunlight—of the stimulus even of a future—press forward to wealth? With penury, toil and Potter’s Field alone before them, are they feverish from the pursuit of gold? Among the educated and less unlucky classes it is not much better. It is computed that generally six or eight persons rely for support on each able-bodied and able-minded man. Thus, between the competent and incompetent, the self-sustaining and the dependent, there is so little chance of reaching the goal of wealth that thought of it seldom disturbs their mind. They who cannot take care of themselves are"not likely to spend their force in running after the unattainable. Those that are borne down by burdens are not apt to start on a contest for speed. Tfte fault of Americans, instead of being in haste to grow rich, is improvidence, the adoption of habits that render riches impossible. They need to be encouraged to economy instead of being lectured upon acquisitiveness, which, despite the opposite opinion, they have less of than any other nation. The comparative few who steadily seek fortunes here are nearly as much influenced by love of excitement as by love of money. After getting money they spend it freely, recklessly often, as if they wished to be rid of it in order to increase their incentive and zest for obtaining more. The unrest which is in the atmosphere of the country impels them to exertion when exertion is not necessary. Their passion for doing, for achieving results, lipids in abeyance the mercenary feeling. They think less of the profit than of the pleasure of the pursuit. Nevertheless, upon these may be charged the haste to grow rich; upon the great mass, in consequence of circumstance and disability, it never can be charged with any show of justice. By continual carping and harping on the disposition to accumulate property, as if it were sordid and degrading, much harm may be done. The national tendency, is in the opposite direction. This is a republic ot spendthrifts, a commonwealth of prodigals. We have so abundant resources that we are improvident from over confidence not less than humor. We,imagine we can repair to morrow the extravagance of to-day; we waste silver in the vain hope of’replaciDg it with gold, unmindful that the habit of spending defeats the prospect of restoration. Homilies on the haste to grow rich have the effect of exciting a contempt for money too great already in this country. In the endeavor to avoid precipitation toward wealth we fall into precipitation toward poverty; and poverty is rar easier to reach Ilian wealth. The former lies at the bottom of a hill, the latter on the summit of a steep and craggy mountain. Havintr no other standard ot distinction than money, and contemning that standard, we think, in our wild republicanism, to show our superiority to princes by outdoing them in pecuniary profusion. Every American dreads to be considered mean in a financial sense; consequently he affects indifference to dollars, and advertises his indifference by ostentation. There is no mistaking the nationality of tbe stranger in London, who, seeing the first strawberries of the season in a fruiterer’s window, entered the shop and asked for a saucer of them. Several Englishmen inside waited to see the “ Yankee’s” amazement and bear his protest when he should learn the price of the dish he had ordered. Having eaten them, he was told they were a guinea. Instead of showing the surprise he felt, he asked for another saucer. This foolish extravagance of our people, this disposition to underrate money, requires checking. For the next few years we might with advantage substitute for the old and well wrn subject, “The Haste to Grow Poor,” which particularly marks our national character. Would that we had a little more haste to grow rich ; for the haste would insure the disposition and beget art adequate economy! Few persons carry but their ends; a thousand tilings prevent; to plan and execute are essentially different. If many of us should try to get rich— no large number are likely to embark with any show of success in an enterprise so foreign to their constitution—more of us would become independent, And independence of circumstance rates next in value to independence of spirit. The conditions are correlative; they are inward and outward. One is dependent on the other. No man can be entirely independent spiritually unless he be independent materially. We need not fear to become hardened by wealth, which always contrives not to be held by too many. We need not fear either that we are growing sordid- and mercenary because we live within our means and labor to add something to our store. Americans have struggled long enough to make everybody rich but themselves. If they turn their efforts homeward both their circumstances and character will be improved.—Junius Henri Browne , in Appleton's Journal.