me a long time to put it in
just the right way. There was nothing personal in what I said this
morning. I was thinking about conditions in general--the whole thing. It
can't go on!"

"What can't go on?"

"The terrible burden of money," he said.

"Terrible burden of money!" I repeated. What did he mean?

"The weight of it--that's bowing people down and choking them up. It's
like a ball and chain. I meant I wouldn't change places with any man in
the millionaire class--I couldn't stand the complexities and
responsibilities. I believe the time is coming when no citizen will be
permitted to receive an income from his inherited or accumulated
possessions greater than is good for him. You may say that's the wildest
sort of socialism. Perhaps it is. But it's socialism looked at from a
different angle from the platform orators--the angle of the individual.

"I don't believe a man's money should be taken away from him and
distributed round for the sake of other people--but for the protection
of the man himself. There's got to be a pecuniary safety valve. Every
dollar over a certain amount, just like every extra pound of steam in a
boiler, is a thing of danger. We want health in the individual and in
the state--not disease.

"Let the amount of a man's income be five, ten, fifteen or twenty
thousand dollars--the exact figure doesn't matter; but there is a limit
at which wealth becomes a drag and a detriment instead of a benefit! I'd
base the legality of a confiscatory income tax on the constitutionality
of any health regulation or police ordinance. People shouldn't be
permitted to injure themselves--or have poison lying round. Certainly
it's a lesson that history teaches on every page.

"Besides everybody needs something to work for--to keep him fit--at
least that's the way it looks to me. Nations--let alone mere
individuals--have simply gone to seed, died of dry rot because they no
longer had any stimulus. A fellow has got to have some idea in the back
of his head as to what he's after--and the harder it is for him to get
it, the better, as a rule, it is for him. Good luck is the worst enemy a
heap of people have. Misfortune spurs a man on, tries him out and
develops him--makes him more human."

"Ever played in hard luck?" I queried.

"I? Sure, I have," answered Hastings cheerfully. "And I wouldn't worry
much if it came my way again. I could manage to get along pretty
comfortably on less than half I've got. I like my ho