gnitude of this fortune
alone may at once be seen in its relation to the condition of the masses
of the people. An analysis of the United States census of 1900, compiled
by Lucien Sanial, shows that while the total wealth of the country was
estimated at about $95,000,000,000, the proletarian class, composed
chiefly of wage workers and a small proportion of those in professional
classes, and numbering 20,393,137 persons, owned only about
$4,000,000,000. It is by such a contrast, bringing out how one family
alone, the Astors, own more than many millions of workers, that we begin
to get an idea of the overreaching, colossal power of a single fortune.
The Goelet fortune is likewise vast; it is variously estimated at from
$200,000,000 to $225,000,000, although what its exact proportions are is
a matter of some obscurity.

In the case of these great fortunes it is well nigh impossible to get an
accurate idea of just how much they reach. All of them are based
primarily upon ownership of land, but they also include many other forms
such as shares in banks, coal and other mines, railroads, city
transportation systems, gas plants, industrial corporations. Even the
most indefatigable tax assessors find it such a fruitless and elusive
task in attempting to discover what personal property is held by these
multimillionaires, that the assessment is usually a conjectural or
haphazard performance. The extent of their land holdings is known; these
cannot be hid in a safe deposit vault. But their other varieties of
property are carefully concealed from public and official knowledge.
Since this is so, it is entirely probable that the fortunes of these
families are considerably greater than is commonly estimated. The case
of Marshall Field, a Chicago Croesus, who left a fortune valued at
about $100,000,000, is a strong illustration. This man owned $30,000,000
worth of real estate in Chicago alone. There was no telling, however,
what his whole estate amounted to, for he refused year after year to pay
taxes on more than a valuation of $2,500,000 of personal property. Yet,
after his death in 1906, an inventory of his estate filed in January,
1907, disclosed a clear taxable personal property of $49,977,270. He was
far richer than he would have it appear.

Let us investigate the careers of some of these powerful landed men, the
founders of great fortunes, and inquire into their methods and into the
conditions under which they succeeded in heapi