shing out of their natures every sentiment and aspiration
unconnected with accumulation of property, these civilized savages and
commercial barbarians attained their sordid end. Before they had rounded
the first half-century of their existence as a nation they had sunk so low
in the scale of morality that it was considered nothing discreditable to
take the hand and even visit the house of a man who had grown rich by
means notoriously corrupt and dishonorable; and Harley declares that even
the editors and writers of newspapers, after fiercely assailing such men
in their journals, would be seen "hobnobbing" with them in public places.
(The nature of the social ceremony named the "hobnob" is not now
understood, but it is known that it was a sign of amity and favor.) When
men or nations devote all the powers of their minds and bodies to the
heaping up of wealth, wealth is heaped up. But what avails it? It may not
be amiss to quote here the words of one of the greatest of the ancients
whose works--fragmentary, alas--have come down to us.

"Wealth has accumulated itself into masses; and poverty, also in
accumulation enough, lies impassably separated from it; opposed,
uncommunicating, like forces in positive and negative poles. The gods of
this lower world sit aloft on glittering thrones, less happy than
Epicurus's gods, but as indolent, as impotent; while the boundless living
chaos of ignorance and hunger welters, terrific in its dark fury, under
their feet. How much among us might be likened to a whited sepulcher:
outwardly all pomp and strength, but inwardly full of horror and despair
and dead men's bones! Iron highways, with their wains fire-winged, are
uniting all the ends of the land; quays and moles, with their innumerable
stately fleets, tame the ocean into one pliant bearer of burdens; labor's
thousand arms, of sinew and of metal, all-conquering everywhere, from the
tops of the mount down to the depths of the mine and the caverns of the
sea, ply unweariedly for the service of man; yet man remains unserved. He
has subdued this planet, his habitation and inheritance, yet reaps no
profit from the victory. Sad to look upon: in the highest stage of
civilization nine-tenths of mankind have to struggle in the lowest battle
of savage or even animal man--the battle against famine. Countries are
rich, prosperous in all manner of increase, beyond example; but the men of
these countries are poor, needier than ever of all sustenance