ing or else
charge him fifty dollars for; but the railroad president with whom I
often lunch, and who is just as agreeable personally, may perhaps ask me
to reorganize a railroad. I submit that, selfish as it all seems when I
write it down, it would be hard to do otherwise.

I do not deliberately examine each new candidate for my friendship and
select or reject him in accordance with a financial test; but what I do
is to lead a social and business life that will constantly throw me only
with rich and powerful men. I join only rich men's clubs; I go to
resorts in the summer frequented only by rich people; and I play only
with those who can, if they will, be of advantage to me. I do not do
this deliberately; I do it instinctively--now. I suppose at one time it
was deliberate enough, but to-day it comes as natural as using my
automobile instead of a street car.

We have heard a great deal recently about a so-called Money Trust. The
truth of the matter is that the Money Trust is something vastly greater
than any mere aggregation of banks; it consists in our fundamental trust
in money. It is based on our instinctive and ineradicable belief that
money rules the destinies of mankind.

Everything is estimated by us in money. A man is worth so and so
much--in dollars. The millionaire takes precedence of everybody, except
at the White House. The rich have things their own way--and every one
knows it. Ashamed of it? Not at all. We are the greatest snobs in the
civilized world, and frankly so. We worship wealth because at present we
desire only the things wealth can buy.

The sea, the sky, the mountains, the clear air of autumn, the simple
sports and amusements of our youth and of the comparatively poor,
pleasures in books, in birds, in trees and flowers, are disregarded for
the fierce joys of acquisition, of the ownership in stocks and bonds, or
for the no less keen delight in the display of our own financial
superiority over our fellows.

We know that money is the key to the door of society. Without it our
sons will not get into the polo-playing set or our daughters figure in
the Sunday supplements. We want money to buy ourselves a position and to
maintain it after we have bought it.

We want house on the sunny side of the street, with facades of graven
marble; we want servants in livery and in buttons--or in powder and
breeches if possible; we want French chefs and the best wine and
tobacco, twenty people to dinner on an